Rumours that Ruined a Lady
Rumours that Ruined a Lady
Marguerite Kaye
Amongst the gossip-hungry, no name has become more synonymous with sin than that of Lady Caroline Rider. Cast out by her husband and disowned by her family, rumour has it that the infamous ‘Caro’ is now seeking oblivion in the opium dens of London!There’s only one man who can save her – notorious rake Sebastian Conway, Marquis of Ardhallow.With Caro installed in his country home, warming his bed, their passion may not be enough to protect them once news of their scandalous arrangement breaks out…
‘I may be out of practice, but I can assure you that my experience is second to none,’ Sebastian replied, pulling her tight against him and kissing her.
She was so shocked that she lay pliant in his arms for a few seconds. Then the heat of his mouth on hers, the heat of his body hard against hers, charged her senses. It had been such a long time since anyone had kissed her. And no one had ever kissed her as Sebastian kissed her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him towards her, feeling the soft silkiness of his short-cropped hair under her fingers. Sliding her hands down his back, she felt the ripple of his muscles under the soft linen of his shirt.
His tongue licked along her lips, touching the tip of hers, making her shiver. She gave a little moan, digging her fingers into the soft leather of his breeches, feeling the hard, taut muscle of his buttocks. His kiss deepened. The world darkened. Heat shivered through her veins. And then the kiss slowed, stopped.
Reluctantly she opened her eyes.
Born and educated in Scotland, MARGUERITE KAYE originally qualified as a lawyer but chose not to practise. Instead, she carved out a career in IT and studied history part-time, gaining a first-class honours and a master’s degree. A few decades after winning a children’s national poetry competition she decided to pursue her lifelong ambition to write, and submitted her first historical romance to Mills & Boon®. They accepted it, and she’s been writing ever since.
You can contact Marguerite through her website at: www.margueritekaye.com
Previous novels by the same author:
THE WICKED LORD RASENBY
THE RAKE AND THE HEIRESS
INNOCENT IN THE SHEIKH’S HAREM† (#ulink_2d01c294-feeb-5374-bae7-ac8c4b29b06d) (part of Summer Sheikhs anthology) THE GOVERNESS AND THE SHEIKH† (#ulink_2d01c294-feeb-5374-bae7-ac8c4b29b06d) THE HIGHLANDER’S REDEMPTION* (#ulink_03cdfc52-0566-5b42-9de2-084c9fe2daa7) THE HIGHLANDER’S RETURN* (#ulink_03cdfc52-0566-5b42-9de2-084c9fe2daa7) RAKE WITH A FROZEN HEART OUTRAGEOUS CONFESSIONS OF LADY DEBORAH DUCHESS BY CHRISTMAS (part of Gift-Wrapped Governesses anthology) THE BEAUTY WITHIN
* (#ulink_554206d3-3855-5e41-95fd-3bf993abe4e6)Highland Brides
and in Mills & Boon
Historical Undone! eBooks:
THE CAPTAIN’S WICKED WAGER
THE HIGHLANDER AND THE SEA SIREN
BITTEN BY DESIRE
TEMPTATION IS THE NIGHT
CLAIMED BY THE WOLF PRINCE** (#ulink_2d01c294-feeb-5374-bae7-ac8c4b29b06d) BOUND TO THE WOLF PRINCE** (#ulink_2d01c294-feeb-5374-bae7-ac8c4b29b06d) THE HIGHLANDER AND THE WOLF PRINCESS** (#ulink_2d01c294-feeb-5374-bae7-ac8c4b29b06d) THE SHEIKH’S IMPETUOUS LOVE-SLAVE† (#ulink_2d01c294-feeb-5374-bae7-ac8c4b29b06d) SPELLBOUND & SEDUCED BEHIND THE COURTESAN’S MASK FLIRTING WITH RUIN AN INVITATION TO PLEASURE LOST IN PLEASURE HOW TO SEDUCE A SHEIKH
** (#ulink_23712d42-deed-5799-92ec-77750697891c)Legend of the Faol† (#ulink_554206d3-3855-5e41-95fd-3bf993abe4e6)linked by character
and in M&B Castonbury Park Regency mini-series
THE LADY WHO BROKE THE RULES
and in M&B eBooks:
TITANIC: A DATE WITH DESTINY
Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
Rumours that Ruined a Lady
Marguerite Kaye
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
AUTHOR NOTE
Almost all of my books have their genesis in the characters of the hero and heroine. This one was different, and began life as a whole lot of disjointed concepts and ideas, something I’ve learned the painful way was a big mistake!
While writing THE BEAUTY WITHIN, my previous book about the Armstrong sisters, I decided that Caro’s story was going to be very dark, and as such did some minor setting-up, hinting that there were goings-on in her life without knowing myself what they were. I wanted Caro—on the surface the most compliant and dutiful of sisters—to have a deep, dark secret, and I wanted that secret to be revealed in layers, so I decided that I would begin her story at some tragic pivotal point and then reveal how she got to there. I wanted to write a love story that extended over a long period of time and, just to complicate matters, I decided I wanted there to be a strong gothic element in it too—without actually having defined what I meant by gothic.
I made Caro a murderer. I invented a twin brother for Sebastian. I made his father physically vicious as well as emotionally cruel. I decided that being a murderer wasn’t dark enough for Caro, and turned her into a long-term opium user. And I invented a mother for Sebastian based on the character of Jane Digby, whose biography I was reading. She was a beautiful and outrageous society beauty, with a string of husbands and lovers, who ended up living as a Bedouin and married to a sheikh. (If you want to know more about Lady Jane, then I can highly recommend Mary S. Lovell’s book, A Scandalous Life.)
As you’ll see when you read Caro and Sebastian’s story, very little of this made it into the final version. There’s no twin brother, no murder, only a little opium and the only link to Lady Jane’s life in Damascus is the mention of an Arabian horse! The problem was, I think, that concepts don’t make a romance. People and characters do. I did get my lovers with a history, though, and I have structured the story in a non-linear way. Writing this book has been a long and sometimes very painful process, though ultimately it’s produced a story I’m extremely pleased with. I hope you’ll agree.
I’d like to thank my editor Flo for her enthusiasm and support, without which I think I might just have given up on Sebastian and Caro. I’d also like to thank Alison L for suggesting Lady Jane’s biography to me, and for coming up with Hamilton Palace as the model for Crag Hall. And finally I’d like to thank all my Facebook friends, for all your suggestions and encouragement during the writing of this book. You helped get me there in the end!
Contents
Chapter One (#ufe921c3f-95e7-58c8-84bc-246e7e3df986)
Chapter Two (#ufe15da3e-5ab8-5557-9e04-40a4ac35372a)
Chapter Three (#u788c8b24-eb07-55c9-85be-f6adee91cdf6)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
London—August 1830
Sebastian Conway, Marquis of Ardhallow, glanced wearily at his watch before returning it to his fob pocket. Just gone midnight. Ye Gods was that all! He’d expected the evening to be substantially more entertaining, especially since this house had a reputation for hosting the raciest parties on the ton’s social circuit.
The recent death of King George the Fourth having caused many social gatherings to be cancelled, there was a very healthy turnout at this one. The relative earliness of the hour meant that the veneer of respectability cloaking the main salon was still more or less intact. The ladies sat clustered in small groups, idly swapping gossip, artfully posed to display their ample charms. Their gowns cut fashionably but daringly, they comprised the so-called fast set, women long-enough married to have done their duty by their husbands, who therefore considered themselves to have earned the right to conduct the kind of discreet affaire which frequently both began and ended at a party such as this. On the other side of the room the gentlemen gathered, sipping claret and appraising their quarry with a practised eye. The air crackled with sexual tension. Everything was the same, just exactly as he remembered, and none of it interested him one whit.
Sebastian exited the drawing room. In the adjoining salon, for those eager to lose their wealth rather than their reputation, card tables had been set up. The play was deep and the drinking which accompanied it deeper still, but he had never been interested in games of chance. Out of curiosity he made his way to a room at the back of the house which had been the subject of salacious rumour.
The chamber was dimly lit, the windows heavily shrouded. He paused on the threshold. The atmosphere inside was thick with a sweet pungent smell which hung like incense in the air. Opium. As his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, he could make out several prone figures lying on divans, some lost in the dream-like state induced by smoking the drug, others clutching their pipes to their mouths, eyes glazed, attention focused inwards.
The room had been decorated in the Eastern manner, strewn with low divans, the rich carpets covered in jewelled and fringed cushions of silk and velvet. He had seen numerous such places on his travels and his own, single, experience of the drug in Constantinople had been, on the whole, pleasant. His dreams had been highly sensual, heightening the pleasure of the release he sought afterwards in the adjoining seraglio. He knew that others endured waking nightmares and grotesque hallucinations while under its influence, or suffered shivering sweats in the aftermath, and so counted himself fortunate. Perhaps if he indulged tonight, it would make one of the beauties so patently on offer in the salon more tempting.
A low, grumbling objection from one of the smokers reminded him that he was still holding the door ajar. Closing it softly behind him, he leaned against the oak panelling and scanned the room. In the centre, a low inlaid table held the complex paraphernalia required to vaporise the opium. A selection of bamboo pipes with their bowls and saddles were set out on a lacquered tray beside several opium lamps. Scrapers, scoops and tapers were scattered across the table, and the drawers of the little cabinet which contained the opium itself were askew. His host, that most flamboyant and failed of poets, Augustus St John Marne, had married an heiress, he now recalled. It must be she who was funding her husband’s hobby, which was like to be very expensive, especially since he was supplying his guests’ requirements so generously.
The poet wafted into the room at that very moment, waving distractedly at Sebastian. St John Marne was a wraith-like figure who had in his youth, if one were to believe the gossip, had the ladies swooning over his beauty and the breathless romance of his verse. A few of the other faces in the room were frighteningly familiar, men he had known all his life. Rich, titled, dissolute and purposeless, they looked much older and more jaded than their years, though many were the same age as he.
Slightly sickened by this realisation, Sebastian deciding against partaking of the drug and was turning to leave when a long tress of hair caught his attention, stopping him in his tracks. It was far too long to belong to any man. The colour, that of burnished copper, made his heart freeze for one long, terrible moment. He had never known another with hair that precise colour, but she would surely not frequent a place such as this.
The woman was lying with her back to the door, her figure obscured under a swathe of shawls and embroidered throws. It wasn’t her, and even if it was, he had sworn he would have nothing to do with her ever again. If she chose to make herself insensible with opium, it was none of his business.
Thus spoke his head. Sebastian’s feet were already moving of their own accord towards the divan, his heart thudding hard and fast in his chest, his skin suddenly clammy with sweat. If it was indeed her, and he simply couldn’t bring himself to believe it was, then the wisest thing he could do would be to turn around and leave forthwith.
Now!
He leant over the divan and roughly pulled back the covering from the comatose woman’s body. She did not stir. Sebastian swore heavily, reeling with shock. He barely recognised her. Thin, painfully so, under the emerald gown which hung loosely around her, the only sign of life was the pulse fluttering under the fragile skin at her temple. He cursed again. Her eyes were closed. Wisps of copper hair clung to her high forehead, which had a glistening sheen of perspiration. Her hand, when he touched it, was clammy. The skin which had once been so milky-white was ashen. Her cheekbones were too prominent, flushed not with health but fever. Her mouth, whose sensual, teasing smile he had once found irresistible, was drawn into a tight grimace. Beneath her lids, her eyes fluttered. Her hand gripped him like a claw and she moaned, a tiny, hoarse sound of protest against the opium-induced hallucination she was experiencing. Hers had always been the kind of beauty which reflected her mood, sometimes in full bloom, at others so withdrawn into itself as to make her look quite plain. Now, she looked more like a cadaver than a living, breathing woman.
Scarcely-breathing woman, Sebastian corrected himself as he bent his head towards her face. Her breath was the merest whisper upon his cheek. What had happened to her? The woman he knew was so strong, so full of life, so vibrant. She had been patently unhappy when last they met, but this stupor went way beyond the seeking of painless escape. What had befallen her to make her so careless of her life?
Telling himself again that it was none of his business, he knelt down next to the prone figure, a terrible suspicion lodged in his head. Her lips were cracked and dry. He bent closer and touched them with his own, the merest contact, yet enough to confirm his fears. She had not smoked the drug but consumed it. Dear Lord.
‘Caroline.’ He tried to rouse her by shaking her shoulder. Still, she did not stir. ‘Caro!’ he exclaimed, more sharply this time.
There was no response. Getting to his feet, Sebastian turned towards his host, who was fastidiously preparing a jade pipe on the table in the centre of the room. ‘How long has she been like this, St John Marne?’
The poet blinked at him owlishly. ‘Who?’
‘Caroline! Lady Rider. How many other women have you here, for heaven’s sake! How long?’
‘I don’t know. I do not recall...’ Augustus St John Marne ran a hand distractedly through his over-long blond hair. ‘Two hours? Three at most.’
‘Three! And she has not stirred in all that time?’
‘I’m the host, not a governess, for goodness’ sake. I can’t be expected to keep an eye on all my guests. Let her be, she’ll come round. Obviously she has misjudged the quantity.’
‘She has not taken it in a pipe, St John Marne, she has ingested it.’
‘Egad!’ Suddenly the former poet was all flapping concern. ‘Are you sure? You must get her out of here. This is very pure—the best, I only ever serve the best. What can have possessed her. Take her away, get her to a doctor, give her a purge, just get her out of here right now, I beseech you.’
Sebastian told himself yet again to walk away. Caro was a grown woman. Given the four year age gap between them, she must be seven-and-twenty and therefore more than capable of taking care of herself. Except that there was something about her that told him she no longer cared for anything. The way her hair fell about her in lank tresses, the pallor of her skin, the outmoded gown. Her breathing seemed to be growing ever more faint.
In all conscience Sebastian could not leave her here, but he had no idea where she lived. A terse question prompted St John Marne to look at him in surprise. ‘Did you not you hear? Rider threw her out. Caught her in flagrante with the boot boy, according to the Morning Post. Turns out that the boot boy was merely the latest in a long line, and Rider being the up-and-coming man in Tory circles, he really had no option but to be shot of her.’ The poet tittered. ‘Quite the social outcast, is Lady Caroline. She has lodgings somewhere. My footman will know, he knows everything.’
Sebastian struggled with a strong and perfectly unjustified desire to smash his fist into his host’s supercilious face. ‘What of her family?’ he demanded tersely. ‘Surely Lord Armstrong...?’
St John Marne sneered. ‘Oh, the great diplomat is off saving the world, I believe—the Balkans or some such place, last I heard. The house on Cavendish Square is shut up. That frumpy wife of his must be in the country with her brood of boys. As for the sisters—not one of ’em left in England now, save for this one and the youngest, who has apparently eloped.’ He looked contemptuously over at the comatose figure. ‘You could say, you really could say, that poor Lady Caroline is quite alone in this world.’
Pity overwhelmed Sebastian, and anger too. Whatever she had done—and he simply could not bring himself to believe those scurrilous allegations—she did not deserve to be abandoned. Whatever had happened to her, she had obviously given up hope. He would regret what he was about to do. He would curse himself for it, but he could not leave her alone in this state when there was no one else to care for her. Wrapping a black velvet cover around her body, Sebastian lifted her into his arms and strode, grim-faced, from the room.
Killellan Manor—Summer 1819
The sun beat down remorselessly from a cloudless sky as Lady Caroline Armstrong made her way towards the rustic bridge which spanned the stream at the lower border of Killellan Manor’s formal gardens. She paused on the pebbled banks, tempted to pull off her shoes and stockings and dip her feet in the burbling waters, but knowing she would then be in full view of the house she resisted, her desire to be alone much more powerful than her need to cool down.
Not that anyone was at all likely to be interested in her whereabouts, Caro thought dispiritedly. At sixteen, she already felt as if she had endured enough upheaval to last her a lifetime. She barely remembered Mama, who had died when Caro was five. Celia had taken her place, but two years ago Celia too had abandoned them to accompany her new husband on a diplomatic mission to Egypt. Her eldest sister’s departure had left the four remaining sisters quite bereft. The murder by renegade tribesmen of George, Celia’s husband, had shocked Caro to the core, though not nearly as much as the subsequent developments which saw Celia happily ensconced in Arabia and married to a Sheikh. Of course Caro was glad Celia had found happiness but she couldn’t help wishing, just a little selfishly, she had found it a little closer to home. She missed Celia terribly, especially now that things had changed so drastically at Killellan Manor.
Pausing in the middle of the bridge to carry out the ritual of casting a twig into the waters, waiting only long enough for it to emerge, bobbing and bumping along in the shallows on the other side, Caro took the path which led through the woods to the borders of her father, Lord Armstrong’s estate. It was quiet here and cooler, the sun’s rays dappling down through the rich green canopy of the leaves.
She made her way along the path almost without looking, her thoughts focused inwards. They had always been close, the five sisters, but Celia had been the glue which bound them. Since she left they had all, it seemed to Caro, retreated from each other in their own way. Cassie, who always wore her heart on her sleeve, had hurled herself, in typically melodramatic fashion, into her coming-out Season. She had already fallen wildly in love with the dashing young poet Augustus St John Marne and had taken to declaiming long tracts of his terrible poetry, at the end of which she inevitably collapsed dramatically in tears. Caro, for what it was worth, thought Augustus sounded like a bit of a ninny. Cressie had simply locked herself away with her precious books. And as for Cordelia—well, Cordelia always was as mysterious as a cat.
The only thing which united the sisters these days was their enmity towards Bella. Caro kicked viciously at a stone which lay in her path, sending it flying into a cluster of ferns. Bella Frobisher, now Lady Armstrong, their father’s new wife. Their new stepmother. Cassie had summed it up best. ‘Bella,’ she had said dismissively, ‘has no interest in anything but usurping all of us by providing Papa with a son and heir. As far as Bella is concerned, the sooner she can empty Papa’s nest of its current occupants and replace us with her own little cuckoos the better.’ And that prediction had proven to be wholly accurate. Bella made her indifference towards her stepdaughters quite plain. And as for Papa, once he had ensconced his new wife at Killellan, he was as absent a father as ever, wholly consumed by his political manoeuvrings. Not even Bella, it seemed, was as important as the diplomatic affairs which sent him to London, Lisbon and goodness knows where he was just now.
It could be Timbuktu for all Caro cared. Except she did care, no point denying it. Papa was all she had left. She wished that he would, every once in a while, put his family before his country. She knew he loved her, he was her father, after all, but there were times, like now, when she was completely miserable and it would be nice to have some evidence of the fact. She kicked even harder at another, bigger stone. The pain which stabbed her toe was comforting, a physical reflection of her inner mood.
The woods came to an abrupt end at a boundary wall. On the other side, the lands belonged to the Marquis of Ardhallow. Rich and holder of one of the oldest titles in England, the marquis was a virtual recluse. His wife had obviously died long ago, for no mention was ever made of her. Papa was one of the few visitors permitted access and always made a point of visiting the marquis on the rare occasions when he was at Killellan long enough to pay calls. ‘The Marquis of Ardhallow has one of the most prestigious titles in the country. If he chooses to live in seclusion, it is not for us to question, or to annoy him with unwanted invitations,’ he had once informed Celia, who had inadvertently roused Papa’s anger by inviting the marquis to dinner. ‘It is a shame the man decided not to take up his seat in the Lords for he’s a Tory to the core, and one must never underestimate the power he could wield if he chose to.’
Lord Armstrong’s enigmatic words had unwittingly given rise to a myth. Propping her chin on her hands, gazing across the meadow at the house in the distance, Caro recalled the many tales she and her sisters had spun about their elusive neighbour. Tall and very thin, he could have been a handsome man were it not for the meanness of his mouth, the coldness in his eyes. Upon the rare occasions she had come across him out on his estate—for Caro and her sisters were wont to trespass there often when out playing, when they were much younger—the marquis’s haughty stare had frozen her to the bone. He wore the powdered wig and wide-skirted coats of his youth too, giving the appearance of having stepped out of a portrait. When he spoke, it was with a strange lisp at odds with the iciness of his tone, which terrified them. For the Armstrong sisters, the marquis had come to epitomise the evil, brooding monster in their darker make-believe games. Crag Hall was their haunted castle. It was Cassie who gave him the nickname Marquis of Ardhellow. Papa, who was somewhat in awe of the man, would be appalled by the liberties his daughters had taken with his neighbour’s prestigious title and spotless reputation.
Without her sisters, trespassing upon the Crag Hall estate had lost much of its appeal. Today however, the spirit of rebellion which she had to work so hard to suppress, combined with a need to put as much distance between herself and her own home, prompted Caro to climb over the boundary wall and into the grounds for the first time in years. She would welcome an encounter with the intimidating owner, she told herself. Though she was not exactly sure what she would say to him, she was certain she would not simply turn tail as she had done when younger.
The house was vast, three storeys of blond sandstone with six sets of windows placed either side of the huge Palladian Corinthian frontispiece giving it the look of a Roman temple. Two sets of stairs led up the pillared entranceway, the pediment of which was carved with the family motto and the Ardhallow coat of arms. Only Papa had ever been inside, and Papa was not inclined to describe in any sort of detail a house of which he was clearly envious. Caro imagined a whole series of opulent rooms opening out the one on to the other, hung with tapestries and huge historical paintings, the kind usually seen only in churches.
Skirting the path which led around the west wing to the rear, avoiding the large walled kitchen gardens, she headed for the rose garden. It was then that she spied the riderless horse. A beautiful creature with a coat the colour of golden sand, it was galloping full-tilt across the paddock towards her, bucking and snorting in its efforts to rid itself of the empty saddle. Surprised and entranced, she felt a fleeting sympathy for the animal, followed by a much stronger desire to ride the untamed creature, to feel the exhilaration of trying to control such an elemental force of nature. The horse came to an abrupt halt right in front of her, flanks heaving, eyes staring wildly. Unthinking, Caro stretched out her hand to touch the soft velvet of his nose.
‘No!’
She froze.
‘For God’s sake, are you out of your mind? Can’t you see he’s spooked? He’ll take your fingers off.’
She dropped her hand and stared in astonishment. Striding towards her, dressed in breeches, top boots and a shirt, all of which were covered in a film of fine dust, was a young man wearing a furious expression. He was also carrying a riding crop which, by the look of him, Caro reckoned, he would happily use on her.
Later, she would notice that he was also a very attractive young man. Later, she would also notice that he was well built, with the natural grace of an athlete. But for now, it was that riding crop and the furious look in his eyes which made her glare at him defiantly, and just as defiantly reach out once more for the horse, clucking softly in the way that never failed, and did not let her down now. The young stallion tossed his head once, then nudged her palm, snickering contentedly.
‘What the devil!’
Caro cast him a triumphant look. ‘It is simply a question of empathy. Animals respond to gentleness,’ she said, with a pointed look at his whip. ‘If your riding is as aggressive as your language, Mr Whatever-your-name-is, then I am not surprised this magnificent beast threw you.’
For a moment, she really did think she had gone too far. He glared at her, delivering a look even darker than her own. Then he threw his head back and laughed, a deep, rumbling and intensely masculine laugh.
He was younger than she had first thought, probably not that much older than she was herself. His hair was close-cropped, very dark brown tinted with bronze, which seemed to reflect the colour of his eyes. She had thought him austere in his anger, but in humour his face was quite changed. His expression softened when cleared of its frown, though his mouth was still intriguingly turned down at the corners. The day’s growth which darkened his jaw, the smattering of hair she could see through the open neck of his shirt, the deep tan on his forearms and neck, all added to a general impression of wildness which appealed to Caro on a fundamental level, in the mood she was in.
His frown returned as he watched her stroking the horse’s pale blaze. ‘Let me assure you, young lady, that if this animal let you close enough to inspect his flanks, you would find not a trace of violence. Who the hell are you?’
‘I’m Caro. I live over there.’ She waved vaguely in the direction of her home.
‘You mean Killellan Manor, Lord Armstrong’s place? I met one of his daughters once. Haughty female, tall. Lady Celia, I think her name was.’ He frowned, peering into her face, and raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘Yes, I can see the resemblance now, though you are not so tall, and your hair...’
‘Is more carrot than Titian. Thank you for pointing that out,’ Caro said.
‘Actually, it is more like copper. Burnished copper. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it.’
‘Oh. That was a compliment.’
‘A very badly worded one, I’m not surprised you took it amiss. I’m Sebastian, incidentally.’ He made a face. ‘Actually, Sebastian Conway, Earl of Mosteyn.’
Caro’s eyes widened. ‘Good grief, you are the marquis’s son!’
‘For my sins.’
‘I can’t believe our paths have never crossed until now,’ she said blithely.
‘I don’t live here, when I can avoid it. I find that my father and I deal best when we are not confined under the same roof.’
‘Well, you must deal very badly indeed if you cannot stand being under such a very large roof,’ Caro replied. Realising too late that she had been both rude and probably hurtful, she covered her mouth with her hand. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...’
Sebastian shrugged. ‘No need to apologise, it’s the truth. My father finds my presence offensive. Nothing about my person pleases him and nothing I can do will change his mind. He packed me off to Harrow at the first opportunity. I went straight from there to Oxford of my own accord. In the weeks since I came down, my mere presence here has offended every bone in his stiff-necked body. Fortunately, I am not obliged to please him, having come into some money of my own. I’m off to London next week, and shall be more than thankful to shake the dust from this place for ever.’
Though the picture he painted was painfully bleak, his tone was flippant. ‘My father is lately remarried,’ Caro said. ‘There is only so much influence he can accrue by marrying off his daughters, you see. He has decided the time has come for him to produce some sons. Or at least, for Bella to produce some sons. Bella is my new stepmother. She hates me.’
‘And so you are trespassing on my father’s grounds in order to escape.’
‘It will have to suffice since I have not the means to run off to London, unlike some,’ Caro said, ignoring the lump which had risen in her throat at the unexpected understanding in his voice.
‘You’ll be there soon enough for the Season, no doubt.’
‘Yes.’ Though she had never considered any other future save the marriage her father would arrange for her, the idea was depressing. ‘Well, naturally,’ Caro said, forcing a smile, ‘making a good match is what Papa expects of us, though he has Cassie and Cressie to manage before it is my turn.’
‘Manage! You make it sound like some sort of game.’
‘Oh no, indeed not! I mean, that is what Cressie says, she calls it marital chess, but she is quite—I mean I am sure that Papa wants only the best for us. It has been difficult for him, losing Mama when Cordelia was just a baby. We owe it to him to—it is natural to want to please one’s father, is it not?’
‘So I am told.’
It had seemed important to explain herself to him for some reason, but in her earnestness, she had quite forgotten how the conversation had taken this turn. Sebastian looked morose. ‘Things cannot possibly be so bad as you think, can they? I know that fathers and sons do not always see eye to eye. Indeed, sometimes fathers and daughters disagree fundamentally,’ Caro said, thinking of Celia’s second marriage, to which it had taken Lord Armstrong a considerable time to reconcile himself. She put a tentative hand on Sebastian’s arm. ‘I sometimes think my father doesn’t care for me at all, but I know that is just—he is simply not affectionate by nature. At heart I am sure...’
He brushed her arm away angrily. ‘My father has no heart. Look, I am sure you mean well, but you know nothing of the circumstances and furthermore it’s none of your business. I can’t think why I—but we will drop the subject, if you please.’
He wasn’t looking at her, but frowning off into the distance, intimidatingly remote. She was abruptly conscious of her youth and her presumption. How pathetic she must have sounded. No wonder he was angry. The best thing she could do was to leave him in peace, even if it was the last thing she wanted.
‘I beg your pardon for intruding, and for trespassing, I will not do it again,’ Caro said in a small voice. ‘I can see that you would prefer to be left alone, so I’ll just...’
‘No, I’m sorry. It’s this place, I find it always blackens my mood.’ Sebastian was not smiling, but his frown wasn’t quite as deep, and he was looking directly at her. ‘Stay a moment and make my horse’s acquaintance properly.’
Did he mean it, or was he just being polite? She found him difficult to read, but she wanted to stay, and so decided to take him at his word. ‘He’s very beautiful. What is his name?’
‘Burkan.’
‘Is he a true Arabian? I have never seen one, they are very rare are they not? How on earth did you come by him?’
‘He is only half-Arabian. He was a gift for my nineteenth birthday.’
‘You see!’ Caro exclaimed. ‘Your father is clearly not as black as you have painted him if he is capable of such a generous present.’
Sebastian may as well have donned a suit of armour, so clear was it that he had no desire to say any more on the subject. Curious as she was, Caro bit her tongue. ‘May I ride him?’ she asked instead.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. He’s barely broken.’
It was her one talent. She had not Celia’s diplomacy nor Cassie’s looks, nor Cressie’s brain nor Cordelia’s wit, but she could ride. ‘I’m not being ridiculous. You saw how quickly I gained his trust. He won’t throw me. I am certain of it.’
‘Lady Caroline...’
‘Caro.’
‘Caro. You are barely broken yourself. You are simply not up to handling a horse of his size and power.’
‘I can do it.’
Sebastian smiled down at her. A frowning smile. A dismissive smile which was both hurtful and annoying. ‘You are the strangest girl I have ever met.’ He touched her cheek. ‘But I cannot take the chance. If you fell and were hurt...’
The rebellious mood in which she had set off from Killellan returned. Confused by the way Sebastian’s touch made her feel, knowing that he would laugh at her innocence if he knew the effect he had on her, Caro broke away. She was tired of being dismissed. In one leap she was over the fence, the bridle in her hands. The stirrup was high, her petticoats a major obstacle, but she had scrambled into the saddle before he could stop her, and was away, urging Burkan into a canter and then a full gallop around the paddock. A fleeting glimpse over her shoulder gave her the satisfying view of Sebastian standing confounded, hands on hips, unable to do anything but look on helplessly.
The horse was nervous, but Caro was not. She sat straight astride in the saddle, heedless of her skirts. It was a talent she had discovered while very young, her affinity with horseflesh. She had never, however, ridden any animal so highly strung nor so powerful. Burkan took all her strength and determination to control for two circuits of the paddock. Confident that she had proven her point, Caro tried to rein in. The stallion however, was enjoying his freedom and refused to co-operate. Leaning over his neck, Caro tightened the reins and tried to soothe him, but the slender thread of communication between them seemed to have been severed. The horse bucked. She clung tight, but he bucked again and Caro found herself soaring over his head, landing with a horrible thud on her bottom.
Sick with mortification, dizzy with pain, she was struggling to her feet when Sebastian reached her. ‘Devil take it, are you hurt?’
She hurt all over, if truth be told, and her pride had been severely dented, but there was no way on this earth that she’d let him know that. ‘I’m perfectly fine.’
Sebastian swore. He swore a lot, it seemed to Caro. She envied him the freedom. ‘You’re quite pale, are you sure you’re unharmed.’
‘It’s my hair. Red hair and pale skin always go together.’
‘Your hair isn’t red, it’s copper, and you are not a healthy shade of pale. Are you going to faint?’
She gritted her teeth and breathed deeply. ‘No. Absolutely not.’ Trembling now, at her own temerity as much as anything, she realised, too late, how childish her behaviour must have looked. ‘Burkan, is he hurt?’
‘He’s fine. I was rather more concerned about you. You could have been killed.’
‘Oh, I’m a lot less fragile than I look, I assure you.’
Sebastian caught her as she staggered. ‘You’re a bold little thing, I’ll grant you that. Weren’t you scared?’
‘No.’ His hands were warm on the thin sleeves of her muslin gown. She hadn’t realised until now how tall he was. And how solid, compared to her. He smelled of sweat and horse and summer, a heady, intoxicating combination. Her heart was racing. She felt strange. ‘I’m sorry,’ Caro said belatedly.
Sebastian smiled his frowning smile. ‘No, you’re not.’
She couldn’t help but smile back at him. ‘I would be, if Burkan had been harmed by my poor horsemanship.’
Her hair had escaped its ribbon. She could feel it, hanging in long straggles over her face and down her back. Her hands were dusty. Her gown must be filthy. Caro was not usually aware of any of these things, but now she wished—she wished...
What she wished, she realised with a horrible sense of shame and excitement, was for Sebastian to kiss her. She’d never been kissed. She had never found the idea of kissing someone anything other than repugnant until now. The way he was looking at her though—was he thinking the same? It was absurd. ‘I should go,’ Caro muttered, blushing, hiding her blush beneath the fall of her hair.
Sebastian blinked and released her. It seemed to her he did it reluctantly, but she knew she must be wrong. She was not much more than a child to him—he had said as much—though she didn’t feel anything like a child just at the moment. ‘I’ll walk you back,’ he said.
‘No, thank you, I shall be...’
‘I wasn’t asking for permission.’
She had nothing to say to that and so, terrified of appearing gauche or worse still, betraying her shocking thoughts, instead simply shrugged in a very good impression of indifference, and began to clamber over the paddock fence, quite forgetting that she could easily have opened the gate.
They walked through the woods in silence. There was between them an awkwardness, an awareness which she could not describe. She did not want their walk to end, but it did, and too soon. ‘This is where I leave you,’ she said, pausing to the wall at the edge of the woods, waiting—for what?
Nothing, it seemed. Sebastian held out his hand. ‘Goodbye, Caro.’
She took it briefly. ‘Goodbye, Sebastian.’ Without another word, she climbed over the wall and took off through the woods, refusing to allow herself to look back.
Chapter Two
Crag Hall—August 1830
Caro slowly came round to consciousness. She felt as if she had swum to the surface of a deep, dark pool, exhausting herself in the process. Her head was thumping. Her eyelids were gritty and sore, as if she had been rubbing sand in them. What was wrong with her? Pushing herself upright, she opened her eyes, wincing as the room spun sickeningly. The ceiling was ornate, with rococo gilding on the cornicing. The bed hangings were green damask, as were the curtains. Tulip wood, she thought distractedly, running her trembling hands over the bedstead with its gilt carving. A dressing table set by the window was draped in white lace. The walls were painted a pale green and hung with a number of portraits. A white marble mantel upon which a large French clock sat, was carved with cupids.
It was, or had been, an elegant room. As her senses slowly unscrambled Caro began to notice the shabbiness, the fine layer of dust which covered the furniture, the faded fabric, the musty air of neglect. Where was she?
Breathing deeply to quell her rising panic, she threw back the sheets and stumbled over to the window, pushing open the casement. Fresh country air flooded in. She was clearly not in London, then. Outside, it was dusk. There was a paddock. Gardens. Woods. And in the distance, the chimney pots of another house. A very familiar house. Oh, dear heavens, an extremely familiar house. Killellan Manor. Which meant that this house was...
She looked around her in consternation. She pinched her hand, something she’d always thought people did only in novels. It hurt, but she didn’t wake up because she wasn’t asleep. She really was here, in Crag Hall. Appalled, she tottered back to sit on the edge of the bed. How did she get here? Frowning hard, her head aching with the effort to concentrate, she tried to recall. Her memory came back in flashes. Her father shouting, then coldly formal. Her storm of tears followed by an urgent need to forget, to obliterate it all, just for a moment.
Who had told her of the room in Augustus St John Marne’s house? It didn’t matter. She remembered it now, the sweet smell, the bitter taste, and then the dreams. A great bear with yellow teeth and malevolent eyes. A fish with bleeding scales. An endless corridor with door upon door which led to a sheer drop. She had fallen and fallen and fallen and not once landed. Dreams. Nightmares. Visions. But how had she come to be here?
A tap on the door made her clutch foolishly at the bedcover, pulling it up over her nightgown. Her nightgown. Had someone then packed her clothes? And who had dressed her? She watched the door open with a heart which beat far too fast and a growing sense of dread.
‘You’re awake.’
Her heart plummeted. Sebastian hovered on the threshold. Caro froze, terrified to move lest her emotions boil over. She mustn’t cry, she must not cry. His frown was deeper than she remembered, and the shadows under his eyes were darker. He looked older. Sadder? No, but not happy either. Which was no concern of hers. She must remember the last time they had spoken, how disillusioned she had been, how hurtful he had been.
‘You said you never wanted to see me again,’ she said, opting for attack to cover her mortification and confusion, ‘so what am I doing here?’
He flinched, and she could not blame him for her voice sounded much more aggressive than she had intended, but she had to keep hold, she had to keep sufficient control of herself to get out of here. ‘The last thing I remember is Augustus St John Marne’s party.’
Sebastian closed the door and leaned against it. He was wearing riding breeches and top boots, a shirt, open at the neck. He was tanned. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her. She had forgotten that way he had, of making her feel as if he could read her mind.
‘If I hadn’t stumbled across you there and rescued you, it would most likely have been the last thing you ever remembered. Or perhaps that was your intention,’ he said.
‘Of course not!’
‘You came pretty close, Caro.’
‘Nonsense.’ She swallowed uncertainly. Her throat was sore. An image of herself, retching into a bowl, popped into her head, making her face flame. ‘I am sure you exaggerate.’
Sebastian shook his head decisively. ‘If the doctor hadn’t given you a purge, I doubt you’d still be with us.’
Which answered that question, Caro thought, now thoroughly mortified. ‘How long have I been here? And more to the point, why am I here? I’d have thought I’d be the last person you’d want to keep company with, after our last meeting. In fact, even more to the point, where are my clothes? I suppose I should thank you for rescuing me, not that I believe I needed rescuing, but I am perfectly fine now, and will relieve you of my presence just as soon as I am dressed.’
She jumped to her feet, staggering as a wave of dizziness swept over her. Sebastian strode across the room, catching her before she fell. ‘Dammit, Caro, you have been at death’s door.’
How could she have forgotten how solid he was? And how quickly he could move. He smelled of fresh linen and soap and outdoors, hay and horse and freshly turned soil. She had an overwhelming urge to cry, and fought it by struggling to free herself. Not that she had to fight very hard. He let her go immediately. As if he could not bear to touch her. Caro sniffed. ‘Was I really so close to...’
Sebastian nodded.
She sniffed harder. ‘I truly did not mean to—you must not think it was deliberate. It was just—I was just...’ Her voice trembled. She took a shaky breath. ‘I merely wished to blot everything out. Just for a while. I don’t suppose you understand that, but...’
‘Oblivion. I understand that need very well. As I think you remember,’ Sebastian said curtly.
Oblivion. It was Caro’s turn to flinch. ‘I should go.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Sebastian, I know you don’t want me here.’ She tried to push past him, though where she thought she was going dressed only in her nightgown, she had no idea. He caught her, pulling her firmly up against him. Heat of a very different sort flooded her, taking her aback, as her breasts were crushed against his chest.
For the briefest of seconds, she saw the same heat reflected in his eyes, then he blinked, his face set and he released her, taking up a post at the window, as far away from her as the room would allow, she noted without surprise. ‘May I ask where you plan to go?’ he asked.
Caro shrugged. ‘Back to my lodgings, where else?’
‘I took you there from St John Marne’s. I couldn’t believe it when I discovered you don’t even have a maid. I paid that vulture of a landlady to watch over you once the doctor had given you a purge, and when I came back the next morning she was nowhere to be seen. Your trunk was packed. She left me a note requesting me to leave the key in the lock.’
It hurt, more than it should, for she should be accustomed to being an outcast by now. ‘One more place where I am persona non grata,’ Caro said with a fair attempt at nonchalance. ‘There are plenty other landladies. I must assume, from your decision not to return me to the bosom of my loving family, that you are aware that I have been cast out?’
‘I heard that you and Rider had separated.’
She felt her cheeks flame. ‘It is not like you to be so polite, Sebastian. I can tell from the way you hesitated that you have heard significantly more than that. You have not asked me how much of it is true.’
‘What difference would it make? Besides, whatever you may think of me, I am no hypocrite. My reputation is hardly snowy white.’
She smiled faintly. ‘No, but it is different for a man.’ This was such an incontrovertible fact that he made no attempt to answer, for which she was strangely relieved. Whatever he had heard, he had not judged her. It was the smallest of consolations, but it was a balm nonetheless. ‘My father came to see me earlier on the day you found me at St John’s. He was just back from the Balkans. He was so angry that I, the one dutiful daughter he thought he had, should be the cause of such a dreadful scandal. It is ironic,’ Caro said with a twisted smile, ‘that of the five of us, I am the only one to have gone through with a match of his making, if one does not count Celia’s first marriage, and it is that very match which is now the subject of every scandal sheet in London. He told me—he said to me—he said he was ashamed of me.’
She dug her nails into her palms. To cease feeling sorry for herself was one of her new resolutions. ‘He told me that I had brought disgrace to the family name. That I was not fit company for my brothers, and that—that I am no longer his daughter. I know it was weak of me, but at the time—for that to happen on top of everything else, it was the final straw. You must believe me when I tell you that I had no intention of doing myself any fatal harm, but I confess that for a few hours, I really didn’t care whether I lived or died. I am grateful to you for coming to my aid,’ she finished, blinking furiously, ‘truly I am, but I am perfectly capable of looking after myself.’ She ran her fingers through her tangle of lank hair. ‘I must look a fright.’
‘Yes, you do,’ Sebastian said, forcing her to laugh, for he never had been one for empty compliments. ‘What will you do, Caro?’
She got to her feet and joined him at the window, looking out at the paddock. ‘I don’t know, but I obviously can’t stay here.’
‘London is hellish uncomfortable in the summer months. Sitting alone in a dingy set of rooms with nothing but your thoughts for company isn’t going to solve anything. You’re not nearly as strong as you think, in body or mind. You need respite, a place to recuperate, a change of scenery.’
‘Then I shall go to Brighton, or Leamington Spa, or Bath. I don’t care where I go, and it’s none of your business.’
‘Why do so, when you can stay here?’ Sebastian dug his hands deep into the pockets of his riding breeches. ‘Tell me honestly, Caro, was it that night which caused the rift between you and Rider?’
That night. She had grown up in more ways than one that night. ‘That night was two years ago, Sebastian,’ she said coldly. ‘What came between myself and my husband was entirely my own fault. If you are offering me sanctuary to assuage your conscience, let me tell you there is no need.’
‘I’m offering you sanctuary because you need it! Why must you be so pig-headed!’
‘I am not being pig-headed, I am being considerate,’ Caro snapped, roused by his anger. ‘Very well it would look, for the Marquis of Ardhallow to give house to a fallen woman whose own family are his neighbours. I can see the chimney pots of Killellan Manor from this window, for goodness’ sake. The county would be in an uproar.’
To her surprise, he grinned. ‘You know my reputation. One more fallen woman is neither here nor there.’
She smiled reluctantly, trying not to remember how that upside-down smile of his had always heated her. ‘I could not even consider it. Papa would be mortified.’
‘Isn’t that all the more reason for you to stay? He has treated you appallingly, I can’t believe you’re going to lie down and take it.’
She opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again, much struck by this.
‘You don’t owe him anything, Caro,’ Sebastian urged, as if he could read her thoughts. Which he used to do, remarkably well.
‘Papa told me I had fallen as low as it was possible to fall,’ she said bitterly.
‘Then show him that he’s wrong.’
She was absurdly tempted, but still she shook her head. ‘It is very kind of you, but...’
‘Kind! I am never kind,’ Sebastian broke in harshly. ‘I thought you knew me better.’
She looked at him wonderingly, playing for time as she tried to make sense of his motives. Though they had known each other for more than ten years, the time they had spent together had been fleeting. Though they had shared the most intimate of experiences, that night if nothing else should have proven to her that she had been wholly mistaken in him. ‘I barely know you, Sebastian, any more than you know me. We may as well be strangers.’
He looked hurt, but covered it quickly. ‘Not complete strangers. We are two renegades in the wilderness with nothing to lose, we have that much in common.’
‘I am not—you know, I think you may be right. I have lived my entire life bending to other people’s will, perhaps now it’s time to live my own life. Whatever that may be.’
‘Then you’ll stay?’
Her smile faded. ‘Why, Sebastian? Truthfully?’
‘Truthfully?’ He stared out of the window. ‘I don’t know. I swore I’d have nothing to do with you again, but when I saw you at St John Marne’s—no, don’t bridle, you were pathetic then, but you are not pitiful. I suppose, despite all, I don’t think you deserve the bad press you have received...’
‘And that feeling resonates with you?’
She knew she should not have said it, that it was deliberately provocative, but he had always had that effect on her, and to her surprise he smiled ruefully. ‘Perhaps.’
It was this rare admission that decided her. ‘Then if you mean it, I will stay. For a little while. Until I have recovered my strength and am in a better position to decide what to do.’
‘Good.’ Sebastian nodded. ‘I—good.’
The bedchamber door closed softly behind him. What on earth had she done? Caro looked out the window at the rooftop of her family home, and discovered that her strongest emotion was relief. A lifetime’s obedience to the call of duty had backfired spectacularly. She was done with it! The shock of coming so close to death made her realise how much she valued her life. Whatever she would become now, it would be of her own making.
London, Spring 1824
The room in which the séance was to be held was dimly lit. Sebastian’s knowledge of séances and mediums was confined to one slim volume. Communication with the Other Side it had been titled, written by Baron Lyttleton. He had come across it in the vast library of Crag Hall on his latest—brief as ever—visit. The tome described the author’s conversations with the departed. Arrant nonsense, Sebastian had thought derisively. He had not changed his view.
Kitty, however, seemed genuinely to believe in the whole charade. His current mistress had, to his astonishment, become sobbingly sentimental upon the subject of her dead mother from whom she had parted on poor terms when she had first embarked upon her fledgling career as a courtesan. Kitty had resorted to tears in her efforts to persuade Sebastian to escort her here tonight. ‘If I could just talk to Mama once, Seb, I know I could explain, make her proud of me,’ she had said.
The fact that she was naked at the time save for her trademark diamond collar, having just performed expert, if somewhat clinical fellatio upon him, made Sebastian somewhat sceptical of the point Kitty was making. He had gritted his teeth at her use of the diminutive of his name, something he had always loathed, but there was little merit in constantly correcting her. He was already bored with Kitty, and under no illusion about her feelings for him either. His rakehell reputation made him a desirable catch for her, but there were so many other fish swimming in her pond that it was only a matter of time before her avarice overcame her promise of exclusivity, and exclusivity was one of the very few principles to which Sebastian held true.
He had already purchased the diamond bracelet which would be her farewell gift after tonight’s entertainment. Though he had no doubt it would prove to be a clever hoax, the séance had at least the merit of being a novel experience. God knows, after more than four years in the ton, there were few enough of those left to him.
They were a strange collection, the other guests in the room, some surprisingly well-heeled. He recognised at least two grand-dames, bedecked in black silk and lace, who turned quickly away from him, though whether it was because they were ashamed to be caught dabbling in the black arts, or ashamed to be seen in the company of the notorious Earl of Mosteyn, Sebastian could not say. More likely the latter, though.
‘Do stop staring, Seb, it is not at all the thing.’ Kitty, resplendent in red silk, her justly famous bosom demurely covered by a spangled scarf, tugged reprovingly at his arm. ‘And take that cynical look off your face. These people are seeking solace from their loved ones, just as I am. Do not mock them, or me, for that matter.’
Sebastian eyed his about-to-be-ex-mistress with some surprise. ‘You really do believe in this balderdash, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do. And so too do the rest of the audience, so you will please me this one last time, and refrain from disrupting the proceedings.’ Kitty adjusted her bracelet over her evening glove, then drew him a very candid look. ‘Oh yes, I know your mind better than you think. I am perfectly well aware that you are about to give me my congé, so I will accept your promise to behave as the gentleman you were raised to be in lieu of any more prosaic payment.’
‘Alas, I had already purchased diamonds for you. But if you are sure...’
‘Then of course, it would be very rude of me to decline them,’ Kitty said with one of her sweetest smiles.
‘You may have my promise and the jewellery both,’ Sebastian said, making the smallest of bows, ‘and please accept my compliments too. Our time together has been most pleasurable.’
‘Naturally it has. My reputation is not undeserved.’ Once more Kitty adjusted her bracelet, a smile playing on her lips. ‘Nor indeed is yours, my lord. The pleasure has been quite mutual.’
He would have been flattered had he cared, but he did not. They were both adept at giving pleasure. They had both had many years’ practice. They were skilled enough to have turned love-making into an art and indifferent enough to ensure that it remained exactly that—a pleasant pastime which was neither necessary nor encroaching, an indulgence of the senses which was no drain on the emotions.
Which, thought Sebastian, as he watched the other attendees begin to seat themselves around the large table placed in the centre of the room, explained why he was so bored. He needed change. And he needed distance. That last interview with his father preyed on his mind. Having the marquis threaten to disown him unless he mended his profligate ways should have felt like a victory, but the truth was, Sebastian’s taste for scandal and his reputation for refusing no wager, no matter how dangerous, had become as tedious to him as they were repugnant to his father. Perhaps he should consider the Continent.
There were still two empty spaces at the table. As the maidservant circled the room dimming the lamps, one of the chairs was taken by a lady. Tall and slim, he could not at first see her face, which was obscured by her neighbour, but there was something, a prickling awareness, which drew his attention. Unlike the other women, she did not wear an evening gown, but a plain muslin dress with long sleeves, cut high at the neck. Her hair was piled in a careless knot on top of her head. Even in the dim light, he could see it gleaming. His memory stirred.
The arrival of the medium, an impressively large woman bedecked in lilac, intruded on his view. Mrs Foster, spirit guide and conduit to the hereafter, to give her her full billing, took the remaining empty chair. The lights were extinguished and the séance began.
* * *
Grateful for the anonymity afforded by the dark, Caro concentrated on trying to get her breath back. Bella, with Cressie in tow and no doubt the cause of their tardy departure, had only just left Cavendish Square for the Frobishers’ ball, resulting in Caro having to run all the way here, unwilling to risk waiting for a passing hackney cab, lest she miss the beginning of the séance. She had come on impulse, pretending a headache after a piece on Mrs Foster in the Morning Post had piqued her interest. Her sensible self told her that it was silly to expect to make contact with her mother, who had been dead nearly fifteen years, during which time her ghost had stubbornly refused to appear. Her sensible self told her that even if Mama did want to communicate in some way, it was highly unlikely that she would do so through Mrs Foster, with whom Lady Catherine Armstrong had never, to the best of Caro’s knowledge, been acquainted. So spoke Caro’s sensible self, but her secret self was slightly desperate and could not help but hope.
‘Let us all join hands.’
Mrs Foster had surprisingly large, meaty hands, more suited to a butcher than a medium. Her fingers, which rested on Caro’s, were warm in contrast to those of the man seated on her other side, which had the quality of parchment and made her shiver. Like someone walking over your grave, melodramatic Cassie would say. Could this woman really conjure voices from beyond the grave? As the room grew suddenly cold, Caro began to think it possible.
‘Concentrate,’ Mrs Foster intoned in a deep, sonorous voice, ‘concentrate on summoning the spirits of the dear departed.’
The silence intensified, becoming thick as treacle. A smell, a terrible noxious stench, horribly like something emerging from a crypt, drifted into the room, carried on wisps of strange white smoke. One of the women seated round the table began to whimper. Caro’s hand was clutched painfully tight by the man at her side. On her other side, Mrs Foster’s hand had become icy and cold, like marble.
Caro tried not to panic. Part of her was sure it was a charade, but another part of her was afraid that it was not. She had assumed that speaking to Mama would be reassuring, that knowing Mama was there for her would make it easier to bear the absences of those who were not—Papa, Cassie, Celia—and accept the presence of the one person she wished really would go away, Bella. But whatever presence was in this room, it was not benevolent.
The smoke drifted towards the ceiling, and the smell changed, from acrid and dank to something sweeter. Lilies perhaps? The clutching man next to her gasped, making Caro jump. Of its own accord, the table rattled, and the muslin curtains at the long windows blew gently as a light breeze wafted through the salon. One of the female guests squealed. Caro, her leg pressed too close to Mrs Foster’s voluminous skirts, had felt the woman’s knee jerk upwards, but was it before or after the table moved? She could not be sure.
The medium began to speak, her voice tremulous. ‘I have someone standing behind me. Catherine.’
Catherine was Mama’s name. A cold sweat prickled Caro’s spine.
‘Catherine.’ The medium’s voice grew higher in pitch, like the whine of a recalcitrant child. ‘Is Catherine there? She wishes to speak to Catherine.’
To Catherine. The disappointment was so acute that it made Caro feel sick and slightly silly. It hadn’t occurred to her that Mama may have to wait her turn, if she appeared at all. She almost jumped out of her skin when the woman on the other side of the table spoke up, claiming this ghost as hers.
‘Mama?’ the woman said uncertainly. ‘Mama, is that you? It is I, Catherine. Kitty.’
‘Kitty.’
The voice, the same strangled, whining voice which had emanated from Mrs Foster, now seemed to be projected from the other side of the room. A trick? Surely it must be a trick. Had the medium’s lips moved? Caro couldn’t see.
‘Catherine. Kitty. It is your mama.’
A muffled shriek greeted this statement. ‘I am so sorry for our quarrel, Mama. Can you forgive me? I know you disapprove of my—my career, but it has brought me prosperity and security. Please try to be proud of me.’
‘Of course I am, my darling daughter. I am at peace now, Kitty. At peace.’
The voice trailed away. Still, Caro could not tell if it came from Mrs Foster or some other presence. The table rattled again. The smell of lilies grew sickly sweet, and the medium spoke once more, this time in a deep growl. ‘George?’
There was no answer. The attendees waited, it seemed to Caro, with bated breath, until the name was uttered again. More silence.
‘Edward?’ Mrs Foster ventured, in that now familiar high-pitched voice.
The clutching man at Caro’s side let go of her hand. ‘Nancy? Could it be my Nancy?’
‘Edward, it is your Nancy. It is I, my dear.’
She wanted to believe it, but it struck Caro that Mrs Foster’s messages from beyond the grave seemed to rely on information provided by the audience rather than the spirit world. It had to be a trick. Of course, she’d known it would most likely be so, but all the same...
Her fear turned to anger. It was not fair, to give out the promise of false hope. What an utter fool she had been to think it could be otherwise. Even if Mrs Foster hadn’t been a charlatan—yes, there went the table again, and this time Caro was sure that the medium’s knee jerked before and not after—even if she had been bona fide, even if Mama had made contact, what comfort could she have given her daughter? Bella still hated her. Papa still acted as if he cared nothing for her—or any of his daughters. And Caro was still faced with the prospect of either making a good match to please him or spending the rest of her life looking after Bella’s many progeny. Her stepmother had already given birth to two boys, and she was increasing again. Killellan stripped of all of her sisters would be unbearable. Cressie, in her second Season, was bound to make a match in the near future, and Cordelia made no secret of her desire to wed as soon as possible in order to escape home, where Bella and her infant sons ruled the roost. Caro sighed. Why was it that doing one’s duty seemed sometimes so unrewarding?
Having assured George that his Nancy, like Kitty’s mama, was very happy and at peace, Mrs Foster slumped back in her chair with a deep, animalistic groan which distracted Caro from her melancholy thoughts. Her hand was released. As if by magic, though obviously with the impeccable timing of practice, the maid appeared to turn up the lamps. Caro rubbed her eyes. Across the table from her, a woman was sobbing delicately into her kerchief. The aforementioned Kitty, she presumed, and obviously wholly convinced that she had just communed with her mother. Lucky Kitty, to be so easily placated.
Caro stared at her, fascinated. The woman was voluptuously beautiful. Tears sparkled on her absurdly long dark lashes, but signally failed to either redden the woman’s nose or make tracks down her creamy skin. When Caro cried, which she hated to do, her nose positively bloomed and her skin turned a blotchy red.
A prickling feeling, a sense of somebody watching her, made her drag her eyes away from the beauty to the man at her side. Her heart did sickening somersaults as she looked quickly away. It could not be he, it simply could not be. She sneaked another glance. It was him! What on earth was Sebastian doing here? Surely not, like her, in the hopes of communing with his dead mother!
It was almost four years since they had met, four years since she had tumbled headlong into that girlish crush which she ought to have recovered from long since. Which of course she had recovered from! It was a shock, that was all, seeing him here, looking even more raffishly handsome than she remembered. He had garnered a frankly wicked reputation in that time, while she had turned him, in her imagination, into her dashing knight in shining armour, riding to her rescue in her dreams, taking her away from the tedium and loneliness of her life at Killellan.
Kitty appeared to be his companion. There was something proprietary about the way the woman put her hand on Sebastian’s arm. And something not quite proper in the way she was dressed. Too much bosom on display, even if it was quite magnificent. Caro’s eyes widened. She must be his mistress. Yes, definitely his mistress, and a—what was the saying?—yes, a pearl of the first water, more than worthy of Sebastian’s reputation. Of a certainty, someone of his poise and experience would not look twice at a gauche stork-like female with carrot hair and no bosom to speak of. Except that he was staring, frowning at her, oblivious to his mistress’s tears.
He looked shocked. It hadn’t occurred to her until now, so taken up with her foolish hopes had she been, but she supposed her presence here was a bit shocking. And now she was blushing. Caro pushed her chair back, intent on leaving before he could approach her, because though the thing she wanted most in the world was to talk to him, the thing she wanted least in the world was to be chastised by him, especially in the presence of his beautiful companion. Stumbling from the table, she was halfway across the room when Sebastian caught up with her.
‘What the devil are you doing here?’
Caro turned. He was not quite so tall as she remembered, though that was probably because she had acquired so many extra inches as to make her a positive maypole, according to Bella. And he did seem bigger—broader, more solid, more intimidating, if she was of a mind to be intimidated, which she was not! ‘Good evening, my lord. I seem to recall you asking me a similar question when we last met in your grounds. I see your manners have not improved much in the interim.’ Her voice sounded quite cool, she was pleased to note. ‘As to what I am doing here, I could easily ask you the same question. I had not thought you the kind to be interested in the afterlife.’
‘One life is quite enough,’ Sebastian replied feelingly.
Damned right, was her instinctive reply. She swallowed the words with a small, prim smile. ‘If there is such a thing as an afterlife, I doubt very much that Mrs Foster has access to it.’
‘I am relieved to hear that you were not taken in by the charade. What the devil brought you here, and alone too?’
His eyes were shadowed, with lines flanking the corners of them which had not been there before. Two more lines drew his brow into a permanent furrow. His mouth still turned down in that fascinating way. He had not the look of a happy soul. ‘If you must know, I came here for the same reasons as everyone else—yourself excepted. I had the stupidest notion that I might contact my mother. I thought—oh, it doesn’t matter what I thought, Sebastian, it is none of your business.’
‘Does your father know about this escapade?’
‘Certainly not. He has no interest in speaking to Mama. Oh, you mean he would disapprove of my being here. You may rest assured that he is quite oblivious, as is he seems to be of everything I do, provided it does not damage the prospects he has lined up for me.’
‘His game of matrimonial chess has begun then,’ Sebastian said.
‘You remember that!’
Sebastian grinned. ‘You almost gave me an apoplexy when you leapt on to Burkan.’
Goodness, but she had forgotten the effect his smile had on her. Caro tried and failed to suppress her own. ‘I don’t know why I did it, except that you were so very certain I should not.’
‘And is that why you are here tonight, because you know you ought not to be?’
‘What a very false impression you have of me. I will have you know, that of the five sisters, I am known as the dutiful one.’
At this, he gave a bark of laughter. The deep, masculine sound of it brought the attention of everyone in the room, including the beauty he had escorted who, having recovered her black-velvet evening cloak, was sashaying towards them, all creamy skin, black-as-night hair and voluptuous figure. Caro felt her own shortcomings acutely.
‘My lord,’ the beauty said, ‘I am much fatigued by this experience, and would return home.’
Sebastian was looking suddenly extremely uncomfortable. Obviously, introducing his mistress to his neighbour’s newly-out daughter was not a task he relished. His discomfort stirred the devil in her. ‘My lord,’ Caro said, ‘will you not introduce me to your companion?’
Now he looked appalled. Emboldened, she held out her hand. ‘How do you do? I am Lady Caroline Armstrong.’
Kitty, herself looking slightly taken aback, dropped a curtsy. ‘Miss Garrison. I am honoured, my lady. Mrs Foster has a remarkable gift, has she not?’
‘I’m afraid Lady Caroline is rather more of a sceptic than you, Kitty,’ Sebastian drawled.
‘Lady Caroline prefers to keep an open mind,’ Caro said pointedly. Did he not realise that his mistress was most likely content to be duped? ‘Really, Sebastian, you are every bit as rude as I recall.’
And a good deal more attractive to boot. Heavens, but she must not let him see the effect he had on her, it would be mortifying. ‘It was a pleasure to meet you again,’ Caro said, ‘but I must go.’
Sebastian took her hand and surprised her by bowing over it, brushing his lips over the tips of her fingers. His mouth was warm on her skin. His kiss was no more intimate than many she had received since coming out, but it felt very different. She wondered what it would like to kiss him properly, and suddenly remembered wondering the exact same thing that first time they had met. It was a struggle to retain her composure, but she managed. Just.
‘Sebastian, I think we had best be on our way,’ Kitty said with a pointed look at her lover. ‘All this excitement has quite overset me.’
Caro snatched back her hand. Sebastian clasped his behind his back and rocked on to the heels of his polished Hessians. No evening wear for him, despite his mistress’s attire. Had he come here straight from her bed? The thought made her stomach churn. She conjured up a faint smile. ‘You are quite correct, Miss Garrison. I must bid you both goodnight, it was a pleasure.’
‘You have a carriage waiting, I assume?’ Sebastian asked.
‘No, I shall have Mrs Foster’s servant hail a hackney.’
He looked at her, aghast. ‘You surely would not travel alone at night in a public carriage.’
‘Really, it is no distance, and...’
‘Sebastian is quite right,’ Kitty Garrison interjected. ‘Better that he escort you and I will make my own way. No, pray do not protest, I am far more capable of looking after myself on the streets of London than you are. Nor need you have any qualms that you are interfering with our plans for the evening. We have agreed we no longer suit, is that not so, my lord?’
Sebastian bowed. ‘With regret.’
Kitty Garrison laughed softly. ‘No regrets, my lord, only diamonds. You may have them sent round in the morning.’
She was gone in a flutter of silk and velvet, leaving behind the faintest scent of rosewater. ‘I must apologise,’ Sebastian said curtly. ‘If it was known that you had been exchanging pleasantries with Kitty Garrison...’
‘Why should that worry you?’
‘It doesn’t, but it should worry you.’
‘Oh, my reputation is spotless. No one would believe it.’
They were in the small reception hall. Caro pulled on her cloak. It was made of serviceable wool and quite unadorned, worn for its all-enveloping properties, as was the wide, plain hat she had chosen. Sebastian tucked her hand into his arm as they went down the steps of Mrs Foster’s house and began to walk along Great Russell Street. It was not quite dark, but the lamps were already lit on the few carriages which passed. The air had a tang to it which Caro could not get used to, of coal and dust, so different from the sharp, clean smell of the air at Killellan. As always at this time of the evening, with the night stretching ahead, there was a sense of excitement, a tension, of a city waiting for the cover of dark to fall before bursting into life.
‘You know perfectly well that you should not have been at that woman’s house tonight without even your maid to accompany you,’ Sebastian said.
‘What Papa and Bella don’t know cannot harm them,’ Caro responded flippantly. ‘It seems to me that if they knew that you were accompanying me across London in the dark, they’d be a lot more concerned than if they discovered I’d attended a séance and conversed with a courtesan.’
‘Their fears would be quite groundless. I never seduce innocents. Dammit, someone ought to be keeping a closer eye on you.’
‘Oh, but they think they are. However, as I discovered tonight, it is remarkably easy to dupe people into believing one is doing as one ought when they don’t actually care. Papa leaves us girls to Bella, and Bella is so very taken up with her darling boys that she has very little time to supervise us.’
Sebastian threw her a strange look. ‘I would have thought that Lord Armstrong would show a great deal of care about who you do—or do not—spend your time with, since the whole point of the Season...’
‘Is to make a match. Papa has taken a great deal of care. He has drawn up a list, and handed the list to Bella, whose job it is to orchestrate the introductions, while it is my job to make myself charming, as you would have noted for yourself had you frequented any of the numerous parties or balls I have dutifully attended.’
‘I have no wish to become the prey of some matron determined to snare a husband for her daughter. There is no more terrifying creature in all the world than a mama with the scent of marriage in her nostrils.’
Caro laughed. ‘It is true, there are times when I feel as if I am being paraded around like a prime piece of horseflesh. I am twenty years of age, and my entire life is already mapped out for me. A Season to catch a husband who will embellish my father’s position, a few years of docile matrimony to produce the requisite heirs, then I shall no doubt be retired to the country to rear them while my husband enjoys himself in the town as every other husband does.’
‘That is a very jaded point of view.’
‘Oh, I don’t really mean it. I am merely a little—it is nothing. What else is someone like me to do, if not marry?’
‘Attend séances.’
‘Oh, tonight was a—a temporary aberration.’ Caro gave herself a little shake. ‘I am perfectly content to marry one of the men Papa has picked out for me. Though Cassie and Celia have made excellent marriages, they were neither of his choosing. It is only right that one of his daughters does as he bids, for it seems to me that Cressie—never mind, it doesn’t matter.’
‘It obviously does. Tell me.’
She hesitated, but he did seem to be genuinely interested, and the urge to confide in someone was strong now that even the prospect of hearing from Mama had disappeared. ‘I know Cressie is not happy, though when I ask her if anything is wrong, she tells me that there is nothing. But I know there is. She tries so hard to pretend, but I know she hates going to dances and she would much rather be alone with her mathematical books than talking about fashion over the teacups.’
‘Mathematics!’
‘Cressie is the clever one. She is practically a genius,’ Caro said proudly. ‘She has been working on a mathematical theory of cards, something to do with probability and chance. It’s all a bit over my head, but she claims that the system she has developed for faro is foolproof. I would love to be able to surprise her by proving that it is.’
‘And how would you propose to do that?’ Sebastian said warily.
‘You are a great rake, are you not? Well, you must be, because they call you the Heartless Heartbreaker.’
‘A stupid name. I doubt any of the women I have had dealings with have a heart to break.’
‘Rakes are notorious gamesters.’
‘Cards are not one of my vices.’
‘Drink then. Though I confess, I’ve never understood the attraction. What is the point of drinking to excess, if you cannot remember, the next morning, whether you enjoyed yourself or not?’
‘Or whether you had done anything scandalous or not,’ Sebastian added drily.
‘Had you had too much wine then, when you drove hell for leather in the curricle you raced to Brighton, or when you swam the length of the Serpentine in the depth of winter for a wager, or when you climbed to the top of the clock tower of St Paul’s?’
‘Had I been in my cups when I climbed St Paul’s I would most likely be dead. It might surprise you to know, Lady Caroline, that I am not accustomed to drink to excess.’
‘It is Caro. What possessed you to do such dangerous things?’
‘What possessed you to ride a horse you could not control?’
She was forced to smile. ‘Touché. Would it cause a great scandal if you were to take me to a gambling hell?’
He stared at her for a moment, then burst into laughter. ‘Not at all, that would be perfectly acceptable since you and I are acquainted. I recommend we try Crockford’s, known as Fishmonger’s Hall amongst the savvy. The stakes are prodigious there, and their reputation for fleecing every flat who enters the hallowed portals is second to none. Your sister’s mathematical system will get a thorough examination, and if it works you will earn a small fortune in the process. I am jesting, I hasten to add, before you get any silly ideas.’
She had not been entirely serious, but Sebastian’s teasing dismissal raised her hackles just as it had four years ago, when he told her she could not ride his horse. Were it not for the turn the conversation had taken, she would never have dreamed of doing any such a thing as visiting a hell. But she was sure she’d heard Cressie crying in her room last night. How pleased she would be when Caro presented her with the validation of her theory—if she could just persuade Sebastian to accompany her.
They were walking along Margaret Street, a few minutes from Cavendish Square. The nearer they came to her father’s house, the less Caro wanted to arrive because then Sebastian would leave her. She was acutely conscious of her gloved hand on his arm, of her cloak brushing against his leg. It was sheer chance which had brought them together tonight, for they moved in very different circles. Four years since their last meeting, and most likely there would be the same before their next. ‘You may be jesting, but I am in earnest. I would very much like to visit this Crockford’s,’ she said impulsively. ‘It would make Cressie so happy.’
‘You are being ridiculous.’
‘It is surely not entirely without precedent for ladies to frequent such establishments, wearing either masks or veils. I may indeed be fleeced, if Cressie’s theory is wrong, but I am unlikely to be ravished.’
‘Caro, you can’t mean it.’
She didn’t, yet part of her did. There was a strange pleasure to be had in challenging him, just to watch his reaction, but there was too the fact that she would be flaunting the rules just a little. Besides, she would also be helping her sister. ‘I could go disguised as a man, if you thought it would be safer that way,’ she said hopefully.
‘Good grief, no, you would fool no one.’
‘Truly? I am so thin, I would have thought...’
‘Caro.’ They were at the corner of Cavendish Square, yards away from her father’s house. Sebastian pulled her into the shadow of the corner building, away from the lamplight, and pushed her veil up from her face. ‘It is true, you are slim enough to slip through rain, but believe me, there is nothing in the least bit boyish about you.’
He held her lightly, his hands on her arms. Not quite an intimate embrace, not quite wholly respectable either. ‘Why don’t you escort me there, since you are so concerned for my well-being?’
‘Are you out of your mind!’
‘With you as my protector I would surely be safe, and...’
‘Caroline! Enough of this nonsense, you have gone too far.’
She studied him carefully. His mouth was set in a firm line, his expression stern. ‘My apologies. I see now that I would be placing you in a most uncomfortable position, which is unfair of me.’
‘Dammit, it’s not about me. I have no reputation worthy of losing.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It strikes me that you have put an enormous amount of effort into building just such a reputation.’
‘It strikes me that you are doing a very poor job of winning me over.’
‘I can see you are resolved not to assist me, and so I will make my own arrangements.’
His hands tightened on her arms. He pulled her the tiniest bit closer. She could feel his breath on her face. Her heart hammered in her breast. She was hot. Her stomach was churning. She felt as if she were hovering on the edge of a cliff, that giddy temptation to leap into the void almost overwhelming.
‘You would not dare,’ he said.
No, she would not, but nor would she back down now. ‘Did I falter when faced with the challenge of riding your unbroken horse?’ Caro asked.
Sebastian swore under his breath. ‘You would, wouldn’t you? No, don’t answer that.’
‘So take me then, Lord Chivalrous, it is surely your duty to do so. Your father would certainly expect it of you, to protect his neighbour’s daughter.’
Sebastian’s smile turned immediately to a frown. ‘I could easily inform your father of tonight’s events and this discussion, but you will note that I do not threaten any such thing, even though it is what any responsible man would do.’
The sudden change in his demeanour shocked her. She had quite forgotten what he had said of his relationship with his father, having dismissed it as a mere passing quarrel, but things had obviously not improved. ‘I beg your pardon, I meant only to tease.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he replied, though she could see that it patently did. ‘Caroline, you cannot—must not—go to Crockford’s alone.’
She refrained from making any further comment, aware that she had come very close to overstepping the mark. Her heart thudded as she watched him wrestling with his conscience. Her own was beginning to bother her. It was unfair of her. And wrong. But she had come too far to back down now.
She was eventually rewarded with a weary nod. ‘Very well,’ Sebastian said, ‘you leave me with no option, Crockford’s it is. But I earnestly hope we do not live to regret this rash decision.’
Chapter Three
Crag Hall—summer 1830
‘So this is where you’ve been hiding.’
Sebastian looked up wearily from the account book to find Caro standing in the doorway. She wore a simple gown, cream striped with pale green and lemon. The scooped neck showed the soft swell of her breasts, the fragile hollows at the base of her throat. Her hair hung in soft, fiery tendrils over her shoulders. There were still shadows under her eyes, but her skin, no longer ashen, had regained the rich creaminess which had always fascinated him. There remained a fragility about her, she was still far too slim, but she had come a long way since he had brought her here. His mouth went dry as he met her eyes, the blue of a summer sky. Even after all that had passed, even with all that he knew of her, just looking at her was like a kick in the stomach. ‘You look better.’
‘Thanks to several good nights’ rest and a bath. Your housekeeper told me I would find you here. It is very—cosy.’
Convenient was the word he would have used, for the room served as his dining room, study and parlour. Seeing it through Caro’s eyes however, Sebastian realised that it was also cramped and rather shambolic. The large walnut desk stacked with account books, papers and tomes on all aspects of agriculture took up much of the available space. Two wingback chairs faced each other across the hearth. A bookcase occupied another wall, and the small table with two matching chairs took up the only remaining space, leaving little room for manoeuvre. ‘I find it adequate for my simple needs,’ he said defensively. ‘I am close to the stables, I don’t have to employ a small army of servants, and it suits me well enough.’
‘Mrs Keith told me that you kept the staff to a minimum, so I suggested I eat here with you from now on to avoid being an additional burden to the household.’ Caro picked her way across the room to the table and sat down. ‘She looked most disapproving. I suspect she thinks we do more than eat together.’
‘She may disapprove, but she won’t gossip, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
Caro rested her chin on her hand, eyeing him speculatively. ‘Are you having second thoughts, Sebastian? Mrs Keith may not gossip, but you know what it’s like in the shires, my being here will probably already have been discussed over the breakfast cups at every house in the county.’
Sebastian pulled out a seat and joined her at the table. He had been so engrossed in his accounts that he’d failed to notice that it was set for two. Having persuaded her to stay, persuaded himself that his motives were purely chivalrous, her remaining closeted in her room these last two days had allowed him to fool himself into thinking that he had quite forgotten her presence. This unexpected domesticity rather took him unawares. ‘I told you,’ he said, ‘I don’t give a damn what the county say of me.’
‘It’s certainly clear that you have made no effort to endear yourself.’
‘What the devil do you mean by that?’ Sebastian demanded, irked as much by the cool confidence of her tone as by her words.
‘Look at this room, it is as if you are camping out and will pack up and leave at any moment. As to the rest of the house—Sebastian, it cannot have escaped your notice that it is sadly neglected. Mrs Keith tells me all the rooms save yours are shut up. She said that I am the first person to stay here since your father died. She said...’
‘She said a great deal too much. It was my father who let the house go, if you must know. It was like this when I returned from my travels.’
‘Perhaps it was like this because you did not return from your travels earlier.’ Caro dropped her coffee cup with a clatter. ‘I’m sorry. That was unpardonable, I have no right to pass comment on your behaviour.’
‘It was. And you don’t,’ he said tightly.
She buttered a slice of bread, cut it carefully into four triangles and began to nibble on one, saying nothing, but he was aware that she was studying him from under her lashes. Sebastian poured himself another cup of coffee and sipped it broodingly. ‘I don’t see what my neglecting my house has to do with what the damned county think of me,’ he said.
‘No?’
She shrugged, and started on a second triangle of bread. She had very white teeth. She had a very sharp mind. He had no need to justify himself to her. ‘Besides, I have no time for the upkeep of this great barn of a place. Keeping the land in good heart takes all of my time and energy. Not that I get any thanks for that either.’
‘I expect it’s difficult for you to understand the way of things here. You told me the first day we met,’ she added, in response to his questioning look, ‘that you spent as little time as possible at Crag Hall. It is hardly to be expected that you would know how to manage such a large estate.’
Much as he would have liked to, Sebastian could not argue with this fact. ‘An inevitable state of affairs, since my father had no more desire for my company than I had for his,’ he said brusquely.
‘Well, that is one thing we now have in common then,’ Caro said after a short, uncomfortable silence. ‘I used to think that my father was simply not the affectionate type. I was sure he loved me, even though he never gave any sign that he did. Then Bella had James, and Papa haunted the nursery, and it was the same with Henry and George and Freddie. He was never like that with us girls.’
‘Caro, I’m sure...’
‘No. No, there is no point in pretending. If he loved me he would not cast me off. He did not even ask if any of it was true. He took my husband at his word. They went to the same school, you know, though Papa is a good twenty years older.’
He was tempted to ask her for her side of the story, but refrained, telling himself that he did not care, that it was nothing to do with him, that her being here was merely transitory. Her attempt to smile was admirable. Though every word she said was true, he could not doubt the pain which lay behind her acceptance of such unpleasant facts, for he knew how much it had meant to her, to try to please the man. ‘You seem very philosophical about it all,’ he said.
‘That is what happens when you come close to death. It rather gives you a perspective on your life,’ Caro replied drily. ‘Sebastian, why do you keep the house shut up like this?’
He threw his unused napkin onto the table. ‘Dammit, can’t you leave it?’
‘If you were to open it up, to invite your neighbours to tea...’
‘Tea! Do you honestly think they’d allow their wives and daughters to take tea with the Heartless Heartbreaker?’
She chuckled. ‘I expect most of their wives and daughters would readily take anything you were prepared to offer them.’
Her eyes were alight with humour. She had a mouth made for smiling, though he was willing to bet she hadn’t done much of that recently. And for kissing. It caught him unawares, the memory of her lips on his, the sweet floral scent of her, the silken softness of her glorious hair. He realised he was staring at her, and poured himself another cup of cold and unwanted coffee. She had changed, he thought. She was right, he didn’t really know her at all.
‘My sisters and I used to call your papa the Marquis of Ardhellow,’ Caro said, interrupting his thoughts. ‘We used to speculate about what the house was like. We were desperate to see inside. It is ironic that it took an overdose of opium for me to be granted my wish. From the little I have seen of the place, Crag Hall would live up to every one of the terrible tales we used to spin. It is quite Gothic in its state of neglect.’
She always did have a way of turning things on their head. That much had not changed. Sebastian pushed his full coffee cup out of reach. ‘The Marquis of Ardhellow. I suppose you think the title fits me even better than it did my father.’
She pursed her lips. ‘What I suppose is that you would like it to be so. You seem almost to relish your poor reputation.’
‘Why not? It was hard-earned.’
Caro looked at him appraisingly. ‘What a strange thing to say. And I suppose my being here can only help your cause. So, you really do intend to walk in your father’s shoes after all?’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
‘Shut up here, never seeing anyone. Just as he did.’
‘I see people every day.’
‘Tenants. Villagers. Stable hands. Your bailiff. Servants. But you don’t have any friends to dinner. You don’t call on your neighbours.’
‘There is the small matter of your presence here. And the fact that my nearest neighbours happen to be your family.’
‘Sebastian, do not be obtuse. How could you have guests call on you here, in this room which is smaller than some of your tenants’ parlours? You don’t even employ a cook. Such a beautiful place this is, and so obviously unloved, it is a shame.’
‘I am not the one who neglected this damned pile.
‘Perhaps your father stopped caring because he knew you did not.’
Sebastian pushed his chair back angrily. ‘If I had known you would be so damned inquisitive about matters which do not concern you I would have...’
‘Left me to die.’
‘No! Caro, I did not mean that.’
‘I wouldn’t blame you if you did. I did not mean to poke my nose into your affairs. It is simply that—oh, you will think I am being melodramatic, but you saved my life. I wanted to help save yours.’
‘Thank you, but I do not require saving.’ She looked as if he had slapped her. He felt as if he had. Dammit, he would not let her get under his skin. ‘You will excuse me now, but I have important matters to attend to,’ Sebastian said. ‘My father may have neglected both me and the house but he never shirked his duty when it came to the estate, and nor shall I. Last year’s harvest was poor, and this year’s looks likely to be no better. Despite my lack of experience, I am very much aware of the impact this will have on the labourers.’ In fact, it was a problem which kept him awake at night, for the resulting unrest threatened to turn very nasty indeed. Sebastian was determined to do all he could to alleviate any suffering, but his lack of experience made it a difficult business, giving him ample cause to regret the ignorance he had so deliberately cultivated. ‘Like it or not, I am the Marquis of Ardhallow now.’ Nodding curtly, he left the room.
* * *
Alone at the table, Caro dropped her head into her hands. All the brightness of the new day seemed to have disappeared. The dark clouds which had enveloped her of late loomed large. She sat up, squaring her shoulders. She had problems enough of her own without trying to solve Sebastian’s. In fact, it was probably a desire to avoid thinking about her own problems which had made her turn on him as she had done.
She got to her feet and began to tidy the breakfast things. It was the least she could do, since Mrs Keith was so short-handed. Two years ago, he had finally destroyed her silly notion that she was in love with him. Two years ago, he had destroyed the last of her illusions about him. She had always laughed at the notion of his being the Heartless Heartbreaker, but perhaps after all that was exactly how it was. Like the Hall, Sebastian’s feelings on the subject were locked away and shuttered. His heart was as cold and empty as the house he inhabited.
Picking up a stack of plates, she made her way carefully across the untidy room. The problem was, if he really had wanted to live up to his name, he would surely have left her to die. What was it he’d called them? Two renegades. She smiled to herself, finding that she liked the idea very much. They had always been thus, back then. Cocking a snook at the world. That night at Crockford’s for example...
London—1824
A week had passed since Sebastian had left Caro outside her father’s house at Cavendish Square following the séance. A week, during which time he’d almost convinced himself that she would see sense and change her mind, until her note had arrived that morning. It had been terse and to the point. Her father was still abroad, her stepmother was temporarily confined to bed, her aunt was unavailable to act as duenna, Cressie had of a sudden come down with a head cold and was also confined to bed, and so Caro was free tonight to accompany Sebastian to Crockford’s. If this in any way inconveniences my lord, then be assured that I am perfectly capable of accompanying myself, it finished.
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Marguerite Kaye
Amongst the gossip-hungry, no name has become more synonymous with sin than that of Lady Caroline Rider. Cast out by her husband and disowned by her family, rumour has it that the infamous ‘Caro’ is now seeking oblivion in the opium dens of London!There’s only one man who can save her – notorious rake Sebastian Conway, Marquis of Ardhallow.With Caro installed in his country home, warming his bed, their passion may not be enough to protect them once news of their scandalous arrangement breaks out…
‘I may be out of practice, but I can assure you that my experience is second to none,’ Sebastian replied, pulling her tight against him and kissing her.
She was so shocked that she lay pliant in his arms for a few seconds. Then the heat of his mouth on hers, the heat of his body hard against hers, charged her senses. It had been such a long time since anyone had kissed her. And no one had ever kissed her as Sebastian kissed her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him towards her, feeling the soft silkiness of his short-cropped hair under her fingers. Sliding her hands down his back, she felt the ripple of his muscles under the soft linen of his shirt.
His tongue licked along her lips, touching the tip of hers, making her shiver. She gave a little moan, digging her fingers into the soft leather of his breeches, feeling the hard, taut muscle of his buttocks. His kiss deepened. The world darkened. Heat shivered through her veins. And then the kiss slowed, stopped.
Reluctantly she opened her eyes.
Born and educated in Scotland, MARGUERITE KAYE originally qualified as a lawyer but chose not to practise. Instead, she carved out a career in IT and studied history part-time, gaining a first-class honours and a master’s degree. A few decades after winning a children’s national poetry competition she decided to pursue her lifelong ambition to write, and submitted her first historical romance to Mills & Boon®. They accepted it, and she’s been writing ever since.
You can contact Marguerite through her website at: www.margueritekaye.com
Previous novels by the same author:
THE WICKED LORD RASENBY
THE RAKE AND THE HEIRESS
INNOCENT IN THE SHEIKH’S HAREM† (#ulink_2d01c294-feeb-5374-bae7-ac8c4b29b06d) (part of Summer Sheikhs anthology) THE GOVERNESS AND THE SHEIKH† (#ulink_2d01c294-feeb-5374-bae7-ac8c4b29b06d) THE HIGHLANDER’S REDEMPTION* (#ulink_03cdfc52-0566-5b42-9de2-084c9fe2daa7) THE HIGHLANDER’S RETURN* (#ulink_03cdfc52-0566-5b42-9de2-084c9fe2daa7) RAKE WITH A FROZEN HEART OUTRAGEOUS CONFESSIONS OF LADY DEBORAH DUCHESS BY CHRISTMAS (part of Gift-Wrapped Governesses anthology) THE BEAUTY WITHIN
* (#ulink_554206d3-3855-5e41-95fd-3bf993abe4e6)Highland Brides
and in Mills & Boon
Historical Undone! eBooks:
THE CAPTAIN’S WICKED WAGER
THE HIGHLANDER AND THE SEA SIREN
BITTEN BY DESIRE
TEMPTATION IS THE NIGHT
CLAIMED BY THE WOLF PRINCE** (#ulink_2d01c294-feeb-5374-bae7-ac8c4b29b06d) BOUND TO THE WOLF PRINCE** (#ulink_2d01c294-feeb-5374-bae7-ac8c4b29b06d) THE HIGHLANDER AND THE WOLF PRINCESS** (#ulink_2d01c294-feeb-5374-bae7-ac8c4b29b06d) THE SHEIKH’S IMPETUOUS LOVE-SLAVE† (#ulink_2d01c294-feeb-5374-bae7-ac8c4b29b06d) SPELLBOUND & SEDUCED BEHIND THE COURTESAN’S MASK FLIRTING WITH RUIN AN INVITATION TO PLEASURE LOST IN PLEASURE HOW TO SEDUCE A SHEIKH
** (#ulink_23712d42-deed-5799-92ec-77750697891c)Legend of the Faol† (#ulink_554206d3-3855-5e41-95fd-3bf993abe4e6)linked by character
and in M&B Castonbury Park Regency mini-series
THE LADY WHO BROKE THE RULES
and in M&B eBooks:
TITANIC: A DATE WITH DESTINY
Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
Rumours that Ruined a Lady
Marguerite Kaye
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
AUTHOR NOTE
Almost all of my books have their genesis in the characters of the hero and heroine. This one was different, and began life as a whole lot of disjointed concepts and ideas, something I’ve learned the painful way was a big mistake!
While writing THE BEAUTY WITHIN, my previous book about the Armstrong sisters, I decided that Caro’s story was going to be very dark, and as such did some minor setting-up, hinting that there were goings-on in her life without knowing myself what they were. I wanted Caro—on the surface the most compliant and dutiful of sisters—to have a deep, dark secret, and I wanted that secret to be revealed in layers, so I decided that I would begin her story at some tragic pivotal point and then reveal how she got to there. I wanted to write a love story that extended over a long period of time and, just to complicate matters, I decided I wanted there to be a strong gothic element in it too—without actually having defined what I meant by gothic.
I made Caro a murderer. I invented a twin brother for Sebastian. I made his father physically vicious as well as emotionally cruel. I decided that being a murderer wasn’t dark enough for Caro, and turned her into a long-term opium user. And I invented a mother for Sebastian based on the character of Jane Digby, whose biography I was reading. She was a beautiful and outrageous society beauty, with a string of husbands and lovers, who ended up living as a Bedouin and married to a sheikh. (If you want to know more about Lady Jane, then I can highly recommend Mary S. Lovell’s book, A Scandalous Life.)
As you’ll see when you read Caro and Sebastian’s story, very little of this made it into the final version. There’s no twin brother, no murder, only a little opium and the only link to Lady Jane’s life in Damascus is the mention of an Arabian horse! The problem was, I think, that concepts don’t make a romance. People and characters do. I did get my lovers with a history, though, and I have structured the story in a non-linear way. Writing this book has been a long and sometimes very painful process, though ultimately it’s produced a story I’m extremely pleased with. I hope you’ll agree.
I’d like to thank my editor Flo for her enthusiasm and support, without which I think I might just have given up on Sebastian and Caro. I’d also like to thank Alison L for suggesting Lady Jane’s biography to me, and for coming up with Hamilton Palace as the model for Crag Hall. And finally I’d like to thank all my Facebook friends, for all your suggestions and encouragement during the writing of this book. You helped get me there in the end!
Contents
Chapter One (#ufe921c3f-95e7-58c8-84bc-246e7e3df986)
Chapter Two (#ufe15da3e-5ab8-5557-9e04-40a4ac35372a)
Chapter Three (#u788c8b24-eb07-55c9-85be-f6adee91cdf6)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
London—August 1830
Sebastian Conway, Marquis of Ardhallow, glanced wearily at his watch before returning it to his fob pocket. Just gone midnight. Ye Gods was that all! He’d expected the evening to be substantially more entertaining, especially since this house had a reputation for hosting the raciest parties on the ton’s social circuit.
The recent death of King George the Fourth having caused many social gatherings to be cancelled, there was a very healthy turnout at this one. The relative earliness of the hour meant that the veneer of respectability cloaking the main salon was still more or less intact. The ladies sat clustered in small groups, idly swapping gossip, artfully posed to display their ample charms. Their gowns cut fashionably but daringly, they comprised the so-called fast set, women long-enough married to have done their duty by their husbands, who therefore considered themselves to have earned the right to conduct the kind of discreet affaire which frequently both began and ended at a party such as this. On the other side of the room the gentlemen gathered, sipping claret and appraising their quarry with a practised eye. The air crackled with sexual tension. Everything was the same, just exactly as he remembered, and none of it interested him one whit.
Sebastian exited the drawing room. In the adjoining salon, for those eager to lose their wealth rather than their reputation, card tables had been set up. The play was deep and the drinking which accompanied it deeper still, but he had never been interested in games of chance. Out of curiosity he made his way to a room at the back of the house which had been the subject of salacious rumour.
The chamber was dimly lit, the windows heavily shrouded. He paused on the threshold. The atmosphere inside was thick with a sweet pungent smell which hung like incense in the air. Opium. As his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, he could make out several prone figures lying on divans, some lost in the dream-like state induced by smoking the drug, others clutching their pipes to their mouths, eyes glazed, attention focused inwards.
The room had been decorated in the Eastern manner, strewn with low divans, the rich carpets covered in jewelled and fringed cushions of silk and velvet. He had seen numerous such places on his travels and his own, single, experience of the drug in Constantinople had been, on the whole, pleasant. His dreams had been highly sensual, heightening the pleasure of the release he sought afterwards in the adjoining seraglio. He knew that others endured waking nightmares and grotesque hallucinations while under its influence, or suffered shivering sweats in the aftermath, and so counted himself fortunate. Perhaps if he indulged tonight, it would make one of the beauties so patently on offer in the salon more tempting.
A low, grumbling objection from one of the smokers reminded him that he was still holding the door ajar. Closing it softly behind him, he leaned against the oak panelling and scanned the room. In the centre, a low inlaid table held the complex paraphernalia required to vaporise the opium. A selection of bamboo pipes with their bowls and saddles were set out on a lacquered tray beside several opium lamps. Scrapers, scoops and tapers were scattered across the table, and the drawers of the little cabinet which contained the opium itself were askew. His host, that most flamboyant and failed of poets, Augustus St John Marne, had married an heiress, he now recalled. It must be she who was funding her husband’s hobby, which was like to be very expensive, especially since he was supplying his guests’ requirements so generously.
The poet wafted into the room at that very moment, waving distractedly at Sebastian. St John Marne was a wraith-like figure who had in his youth, if one were to believe the gossip, had the ladies swooning over his beauty and the breathless romance of his verse. A few of the other faces in the room were frighteningly familiar, men he had known all his life. Rich, titled, dissolute and purposeless, they looked much older and more jaded than their years, though many were the same age as he.
Slightly sickened by this realisation, Sebastian deciding against partaking of the drug and was turning to leave when a long tress of hair caught his attention, stopping him in his tracks. It was far too long to belong to any man. The colour, that of burnished copper, made his heart freeze for one long, terrible moment. He had never known another with hair that precise colour, but she would surely not frequent a place such as this.
The woman was lying with her back to the door, her figure obscured under a swathe of shawls and embroidered throws. It wasn’t her, and even if it was, he had sworn he would have nothing to do with her ever again. If she chose to make herself insensible with opium, it was none of his business.
Thus spoke his head. Sebastian’s feet were already moving of their own accord towards the divan, his heart thudding hard and fast in his chest, his skin suddenly clammy with sweat. If it was indeed her, and he simply couldn’t bring himself to believe it was, then the wisest thing he could do would be to turn around and leave forthwith.
Now!
He leant over the divan and roughly pulled back the covering from the comatose woman’s body. She did not stir. Sebastian swore heavily, reeling with shock. He barely recognised her. Thin, painfully so, under the emerald gown which hung loosely around her, the only sign of life was the pulse fluttering under the fragile skin at her temple. He cursed again. Her eyes were closed. Wisps of copper hair clung to her high forehead, which had a glistening sheen of perspiration. Her hand, when he touched it, was clammy. The skin which had once been so milky-white was ashen. Her cheekbones were too prominent, flushed not with health but fever. Her mouth, whose sensual, teasing smile he had once found irresistible, was drawn into a tight grimace. Beneath her lids, her eyes fluttered. Her hand gripped him like a claw and she moaned, a tiny, hoarse sound of protest against the opium-induced hallucination she was experiencing. Hers had always been the kind of beauty which reflected her mood, sometimes in full bloom, at others so withdrawn into itself as to make her look quite plain. Now, she looked more like a cadaver than a living, breathing woman.
Scarcely-breathing woman, Sebastian corrected himself as he bent his head towards her face. Her breath was the merest whisper upon his cheek. What had happened to her? The woman he knew was so strong, so full of life, so vibrant. She had been patently unhappy when last they met, but this stupor went way beyond the seeking of painless escape. What had befallen her to make her so careless of her life?
Telling himself again that it was none of his business, he knelt down next to the prone figure, a terrible suspicion lodged in his head. Her lips were cracked and dry. He bent closer and touched them with his own, the merest contact, yet enough to confirm his fears. She had not smoked the drug but consumed it. Dear Lord.
‘Caroline.’ He tried to rouse her by shaking her shoulder. Still, she did not stir. ‘Caro!’ he exclaimed, more sharply this time.
There was no response. Getting to his feet, Sebastian turned towards his host, who was fastidiously preparing a jade pipe on the table in the centre of the room. ‘How long has she been like this, St John Marne?’
The poet blinked at him owlishly. ‘Who?’
‘Caroline! Lady Rider. How many other women have you here, for heaven’s sake! How long?’
‘I don’t know. I do not recall...’ Augustus St John Marne ran a hand distractedly through his over-long blond hair. ‘Two hours? Three at most.’
‘Three! And she has not stirred in all that time?’
‘I’m the host, not a governess, for goodness’ sake. I can’t be expected to keep an eye on all my guests. Let her be, she’ll come round. Obviously she has misjudged the quantity.’
‘She has not taken it in a pipe, St John Marne, she has ingested it.’
‘Egad!’ Suddenly the former poet was all flapping concern. ‘Are you sure? You must get her out of here. This is very pure—the best, I only ever serve the best. What can have possessed her. Take her away, get her to a doctor, give her a purge, just get her out of here right now, I beseech you.’
Sebastian told himself yet again to walk away. Caro was a grown woman. Given the four year age gap between them, she must be seven-and-twenty and therefore more than capable of taking care of herself. Except that there was something about her that told him she no longer cared for anything. The way her hair fell about her in lank tresses, the pallor of her skin, the outmoded gown. Her breathing seemed to be growing ever more faint.
In all conscience Sebastian could not leave her here, but he had no idea where she lived. A terse question prompted St John Marne to look at him in surprise. ‘Did you not you hear? Rider threw her out. Caught her in flagrante with the boot boy, according to the Morning Post. Turns out that the boot boy was merely the latest in a long line, and Rider being the up-and-coming man in Tory circles, he really had no option but to be shot of her.’ The poet tittered. ‘Quite the social outcast, is Lady Caroline. She has lodgings somewhere. My footman will know, he knows everything.’
Sebastian struggled with a strong and perfectly unjustified desire to smash his fist into his host’s supercilious face. ‘What of her family?’ he demanded tersely. ‘Surely Lord Armstrong...?’
St John Marne sneered. ‘Oh, the great diplomat is off saving the world, I believe—the Balkans or some such place, last I heard. The house on Cavendish Square is shut up. That frumpy wife of his must be in the country with her brood of boys. As for the sisters—not one of ’em left in England now, save for this one and the youngest, who has apparently eloped.’ He looked contemptuously over at the comatose figure. ‘You could say, you really could say, that poor Lady Caroline is quite alone in this world.’
Pity overwhelmed Sebastian, and anger too. Whatever she had done—and he simply could not bring himself to believe those scurrilous allegations—she did not deserve to be abandoned. Whatever had happened to her, she had obviously given up hope. He would regret what he was about to do. He would curse himself for it, but he could not leave her alone in this state when there was no one else to care for her. Wrapping a black velvet cover around her body, Sebastian lifted her into his arms and strode, grim-faced, from the room.
Killellan Manor—Summer 1819
The sun beat down remorselessly from a cloudless sky as Lady Caroline Armstrong made her way towards the rustic bridge which spanned the stream at the lower border of Killellan Manor’s formal gardens. She paused on the pebbled banks, tempted to pull off her shoes and stockings and dip her feet in the burbling waters, but knowing she would then be in full view of the house she resisted, her desire to be alone much more powerful than her need to cool down.
Not that anyone was at all likely to be interested in her whereabouts, Caro thought dispiritedly. At sixteen, she already felt as if she had endured enough upheaval to last her a lifetime. She barely remembered Mama, who had died when Caro was five. Celia had taken her place, but two years ago Celia too had abandoned them to accompany her new husband on a diplomatic mission to Egypt. Her eldest sister’s departure had left the four remaining sisters quite bereft. The murder by renegade tribesmen of George, Celia’s husband, had shocked Caro to the core, though not nearly as much as the subsequent developments which saw Celia happily ensconced in Arabia and married to a Sheikh. Of course Caro was glad Celia had found happiness but she couldn’t help wishing, just a little selfishly, she had found it a little closer to home. She missed Celia terribly, especially now that things had changed so drastically at Killellan Manor.
Pausing in the middle of the bridge to carry out the ritual of casting a twig into the waters, waiting only long enough for it to emerge, bobbing and bumping along in the shallows on the other side, Caro took the path which led through the woods to the borders of her father, Lord Armstrong’s estate. It was quiet here and cooler, the sun’s rays dappling down through the rich green canopy of the leaves.
She made her way along the path almost without looking, her thoughts focused inwards. They had always been close, the five sisters, but Celia had been the glue which bound them. Since she left they had all, it seemed to Caro, retreated from each other in their own way. Cassie, who always wore her heart on her sleeve, had hurled herself, in typically melodramatic fashion, into her coming-out Season. She had already fallen wildly in love with the dashing young poet Augustus St John Marne and had taken to declaiming long tracts of his terrible poetry, at the end of which she inevitably collapsed dramatically in tears. Caro, for what it was worth, thought Augustus sounded like a bit of a ninny. Cressie had simply locked herself away with her precious books. And as for Cordelia—well, Cordelia always was as mysterious as a cat.
The only thing which united the sisters these days was their enmity towards Bella. Caro kicked viciously at a stone which lay in her path, sending it flying into a cluster of ferns. Bella Frobisher, now Lady Armstrong, their father’s new wife. Their new stepmother. Cassie had summed it up best. ‘Bella,’ she had said dismissively, ‘has no interest in anything but usurping all of us by providing Papa with a son and heir. As far as Bella is concerned, the sooner she can empty Papa’s nest of its current occupants and replace us with her own little cuckoos the better.’ And that prediction had proven to be wholly accurate. Bella made her indifference towards her stepdaughters quite plain. And as for Papa, once he had ensconced his new wife at Killellan, he was as absent a father as ever, wholly consumed by his political manoeuvrings. Not even Bella, it seemed, was as important as the diplomatic affairs which sent him to London, Lisbon and goodness knows where he was just now.
It could be Timbuktu for all Caro cared. Except she did care, no point denying it. Papa was all she had left. She wished that he would, every once in a while, put his family before his country. She knew he loved her, he was her father, after all, but there were times, like now, when she was completely miserable and it would be nice to have some evidence of the fact. She kicked even harder at another, bigger stone. The pain which stabbed her toe was comforting, a physical reflection of her inner mood.
The woods came to an abrupt end at a boundary wall. On the other side, the lands belonged to the Marquis of Ardhallow. Rich and holder of one of the oldest titles in England, the marquis was a virtual recluse. His wife had obviously died long ago, for no mention was ever made of her. Papa was one of the few visitors permitted access and always made a point of visiting the marquis on the rare occasions when he was at Killellan long enough to pay calls. ‘The Marquis of Ardhallow has one of the most prestigious titles in the country. If he chooses to live in seclusion, it is not for us to question, or to annoy him with unwanted invitations,’ he had once informed Celia, who had inadvertently roused Papa’s anger by inviting the marquis to dinner. ‘It is a shame the man decided not to take up his seat in the Lords for he’s a Tory to the core, and one must never underestimate the power he could wield if he chose to.’
Lord Armstrong’s enigmatic words had unwittingly given rise to a myth. Propping her chin on her hands, gazing across the meadow at the house in the distance, Caro recalled the many tales she and her sisters had spun about their elusive neighbour. Tall and very thin, he could have been a handsome man were it not for the meanness of his mouth, the coldness in his eyes. Upon the rare occasions she had come across him out on his estate—for Caro and her sisters were wont to trespass there often when out playing, when they were much younger—the marquis’s haughty stare had frozen her to the bone. He wore the powdered wig and wide-skirted coats of his youth too, giving the appearance of having stepped out of a portrait. When he spoke, it was with a strange lisp at odds with the iciness of his tone, which terrified them. For the Armstrong sisters, the marquis had come to epitomise the evil, brooding monster in their darker make-believe games. Crag Hall was their haunted castle. It was Cassie who gave him the nickname Marquis of Ardhellow. Papa, who was somewhat in awe of the man, would be appalled by the liberties his daughters had taken with his neighbour’s prestigious title and spotless reputation.
Without her sisters, trespassing upon the Crag Hall estate had lost much of its appeal. Today however, the spirit of rebellion which she had to work so hard to suppress, combined with a need to put as much distance between herself and her own home, prompted Caro to climb over the boundary wall and into the grounds for the first time in years. She would welcome an encounter with the intimidating owner, she told herself. Though she was not exactly sure what she would say to him, she was certain she would not simply turn tail as she had done when younger.
The house was vast, three storeys of blond sandstone with six sets of windows placed either side of the huge Palladian Corinthian frontispiece giving it the look of a Roman temple. Two sets of stairs led up the pillared entranceway, the pediment of which was carved with the family motto and the Ardhallow coat of arms. Only Papa had ever been inside, and Papa was not inclined to describe in any sort of detail a house of which he was clearly envious. Caro imagined a whole series of opulent rooms opening out the one on to the other, hung with tapestries and huge historical paintings, the kind usually seen only in churches.
Skirting the path which led around the west wing to the rear, avoiding the large walled kitchen gardens, she headed for the rose garden. It was then that she spied the riderless horse. A beautiful creature with a coat the colour of golden sand, it was galloping full-tilt across the paddock towards her, bucking and snorting in its efforts to rid itself of the empty saddle. Surprised and entranced, she felt a fleeting sympathy for the animal, followed by a much stronger desire to ride the untamed creature, to feel the exhilaration of trying to control such an elemental force of nature. The horse came to an abrupt halt right in front of her, flanks heaving, eyes staring wildly. Unthinking, Caro stretched out her hand to touch the soft velvet of his nose.
‘No!’
She froze.
‘For God’s sake, are you out of your mind? Can’t you see he’s spooked? He’ll take your fingers off.’
She dropped her hand and stared in astonishment. Striding towards her, dressed in breeches, top boots and a shirt, all of which were covered in a film of fine dust, was a young man wearing a furious expression. He was also carrying a riding crop which, by the look of him, Caro reckoned, he would happily use on her.
Later, she would notice that he was also a very attractive young man. Later, she would also notice that he was well built, with the natural grace of an athlete. But for now, it was that riding crop and the furious look in his eyes which made her glare at him defiantly, and just as defiantly reach out once more for the horse, clucking softly in the way that never failed, and did not let her down now. The young stallion tossed his head once, then nudged her palm, snickering contentedly.
‘What the devil!’
Caro cast him a triumphant look. ‘It is simply a question of empathy. Animals respond to gentleness,’ she said, with a pointed look at his whip. ‘If your riding is as aggressive as your language, Mr Whatever-your-name-is, then I am not surprised this magnificent beast threw you.’
For a moment, she really did think she had gone too far. He glared at her, delivering a look even darker than her own. Then he threw his head back and laughed, a deep, rumbling and intensely masculine laugh.
He was younger than she had first thought, probably not that much older than she was herself. His hair was close-cropped, very dark brown tinted with bronze, which seemed to reflect the colour of his eyes. She had thought him austere in his anger, but in humour his face was quite changed. His expression softened when cleared of its frown, though his mouth was still intriguingly turned down at the corners. The day’s growth which darkened his jaw, the smattering of hair she could see through the open neck of his shirt, the deep tan on his forearms and neck, all added to a general impression of wildness which appealed to Caro on a fundamental level, in the mood she was in.
His frown returned as he watched her stroking the horse’s pale blaze. ‘Let me assure you, young lady, that if this animal let you close enough to inspect his flanks, you would find not a trace of violence. Who the hell are you?’
‘I’m Caro. I live over there.’ She waved vaguely in the direction of her home.
‘You mean Killellan Manor, Lord Armstrong’s place? I met one of his daughters once. Haughty female, tall. Lady Celia, I think her name was.’ He frowned, peering into her face, and raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘Yes, I can see the resemblance now, though you are not so tall, and your hair...’
‘Is more carrot than Titian. Thank you for pointing that out,’ Caro said.
‘Actually, it is more like copper. Burnished copper. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it.’
‘Oh. That was a compliment.’
‘A very badly worded one, I’m not surprised you took it amiss. I’m Sebastian, incidentally.’ He made a face. ‘Actually, Sebastian Conway, Earl of Mosteyn.’
Caro’s eyes widened. ‘Good grief, you are the marquis’s son!’
‘For my sins.’
‘I can’t believe our paths have never crossed until now,’ she said blithely.
‘I don’t live here, when I can avoid it. I find that my father and I deal best when we are not confined under the same roof.’
‘Well, you must deal very badly indeed if you cannot stand being under such a very large roof,’ Caro replied. Realising too late that she had been both rude and probably hurtful, she covered her mouth with her hand. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...’
Sebastian shrugged. ‘No need to apologise, it’s the truth. My father finds my presence offensive. Nothing about my person pleases him and nothing I can do will change his mind. He packed me off to Harrow at the first opportunity. I went straight from there to Oxford of my own accord. In the weeks since I came down, my mere presence here has offended every bone in his stiff-necked body. Fortunately, I am not obliged to please him, having come into some money of my own. I’m off to London next week, and shall be more than thankful to shake the dust from this place for ever.’
Though the picture he painted was painfully bleak, his tone was flippant. ‘My father is lately remarried,’ Caro said. ‘There is only so much influence he can accrue by marrying off his daughters, you see. He has decided the time has come for him to produce some sons. Or at least, for Bella to produce some sons. Bella is my new stepmother. She hates me.’
‘And so you are trespassing on my father’s grounds in order to escape.’
‘It will have to suffice since I have not the means to run off to London, unlike some,’ Caro said, ignoring the lump which had risen in her throat at the unexpected understanding in his voice.
‘You’ll be there soon enough for the Season, no doubt.’
‘Yes.’ Though she had never considered any other future save the marriage her father would arrange for her, the idea was depressing. ‘Well, naturally,’ Caro said, forcing a smile, ‘making a good match is what Papa expects of us, though he has Cassie and Cressie to manage before it is my turn.’
‘Manage! You make it sound like some sort of game.’
‘Oh no, indeed not! I mean, that is what Cressie says, she calls it marital chess, but she is quite—I mean I am sure that Papa wants only the best for us. It has been difficult for him, losing Mama when Cordelia was just a baby. We owe it to him to—it is natural to want to please one’s father, is it not?’
‘So I am told.’
It had seemed important to explain herself to him for some reason, but in her earnestness, she had quite forgotten how the conversation had taken this turn. Sebastian looked morose. ‘Things cannot possibly be so bad as you think, can they? I know that fathers and sons do not always see eye to eye. Indeed, sometimes fathers and daughters disagree fundamentally,’ Caro said, thinking of Celia’s second marriage, to which it had taken Lord Armstrong a considerable time to reconcile himself. She put a tentative hand on Sebastian’s arm. ‘I sometimes think my father doesn’t care for me at all, but I know that is just—he is simply not affectionate by nature. At heart I am sure...’
He brushed her arm away angrily. ‘My father has no heart. Look, I am sure you mean well, but you know nothing of the circumstances and furthermore it’s none of your business. I can’t think why I—but we will drop the subject, if you please.’
He wasn’t looking at her, but frowning off into the distance, intimidatingly remote. She was abruptly conscious of her youth and her presumption. How pathetic she must have sounded. No wonder he was angry. The best thing she could do was to leave him in peace, even if it was the last thing she wanted.
‘I beg your pardon for intruding, and for trespassing, I will not do it again,’ Caro said in a small voice. ‘I can see that you would prefer to be left alone, so I’ll just...’
‘No, I’m sorry. It’s this place, I find it always blackens my mood.’ Sebastian was not smiling, but his frown wasn’t quite as deep, and he was looking directly at her. ‘Stay a moment and make my horse’s acquaintance properly.’
Did he mean it, or was he just being polite? She found him difficult to read, but she wanted to stay, and so decided to take him at his word. ‘He’s very beautiful. What is his name?’
‘Burkan.’
‘Is he a true Arabian? I have never seen one, they are very rare are they not? How on earth did you come by him?’
‘He is only half-Arabian. He was a gift for my nineteenth birthday.’
‘You see!’ Caro exclaimed. ‘Your father is clearly not as black as you have painted him if he is capable of such a generous present.’
Sebastian may as well have donned a suit of armour, so clear was it that he had no desire to say any more on the subject. Curious as she was, Caro bit her tongue. ‘May I ride him?’ she asked instead.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. He’s barely broken.’
It was her one talent. She had not Celia’s diplomacy nor Cassie’s looks, nor Cressie’s brain nor Cordelia’s wit, but she could ride. ‘I’m not being ridiculous. You saw how quickly I gained his trust. He won’t throw me. I am certain of it.’
‘Lady Caroline...’
‘Caro.’
‘Caro. You are barely broken yourself. You are simply not up to handling a horse of his size and power.’
‘I can do it.’
Sebastian smiled down at her. A frowning smile. A dismissive smile which was both hurtful and annoying. ‘You are the strangest girl I have ever met.’ He touched her cheek. ‘But I cannot take the chance. If you fell and were hurt...’
The rebellious mood in which she had set off from Killellan returned. Confused by the way Sebastian’s touch made her feel, knowing that he would laugh at her innocence if he knew the effect he had on her, Caro broke away. She was tired of being dismissed. In one leap she was over the fence, the bridle in her hands. The stirrup was high, her petticoats a major obstacle, but she had scrambled into the saddle before he could stop her, and was away, urging Burkan into a canter and then a full gallop around the paddock. A fleeting glimpse over her shoulder gave her the satisfying view of Sebastian standing confounded, hands on hips, unable to do anything but look on helplessly.
The horse was nervous, but Caro was not. She sat straight astride in the saddle, heedless of her skirts. It was a talent she had discovered while very young, her affinity with horseflesh. She had never, however, ridden any animal so highly strung nor so powerful. Burkan took all her strength and determination to control for two circuits of the paddock. Confident that she had proven her point, Caro tried to rein in. The stallion however, was enjoying his freedom and refused to co-operate. Leaning over his neck, Caro tightened the reins and tried to soothe him, but the slender thread of communication between them seemed to have been severed. The horse bucked. She clung tight, but he bucked again and Caro found herself soaring over his head, landing with a horrible thud on her bottom.
Sick with mortification, dizzy with pain, she was struggling to her feet when Sebastian reached her. ‘Devil take it, are you hurt?’
She hurt all over, if truth be told, and her pride had been severely dented, but there was no way on this earth that she’d let him know that. ‘I’m perfectly fine.’
Sebastian swore. He swore a lot, it seemed to Caro. She envied him the freedom. ‘You’re quite pale, are you sure you’re unharmed.’
‘It’s my hair. Red hair and pale skin always go together.’
‘Your hair isn’t red, it’s copper, and you are not a healthy shade of pale. Are you going to faint?’
She gritted her teeth and breathed deeply. ‘No. Absolutely not.’ Trembling now, at her own temerity as much as anything, she realised, too late, how childish her behaviour must have looked. ‘Burkan, is he hurt?’
‘He’s fine. I was rather more concerned about you. You could have been killed.’
‘Oh, I’m a lot less fragile than I look, I assure you.’
Sebastian caught her as she staggered. ‘You’re a bold little thing, I’ll grant you that. Weren’t you scared?’
‘No.’ His hands were warm on the thin sleeves of her muslin gown. She hadn’t realised until now how tall he was. And how solid, compared to her. He smelled of sweat and horse and summer, a heady, intoxicating combination. Her heart was racing. She felt strange. ‘I’m sorry,’ Caro said belatedly.
Sebastian smiled his frowning smile. ‘No, you’re not.’
She couldn’t help but smile back at him. ‘I would be, if Burkan had been harmed by my poor horsemanship.’
Her hair had escaped its ribbon. She could feel it, hanging in long straggles over her face and down her back. Her hands were dusty. Her gown must be filthy. Caro was not usually aware of any of these things, but now she wished—she wished...
What she wished, she realised with a horrible sense of shame and excitement, was for Sebastian to kiss her. She’d never been kissed. She had never found the idea of kissing someone anything other than repugnant until now. The way he was looking at her though—was he thinking the same? It was absurd. ‘I should go,’ Caro muttered, blushing, hiding her blush beneath the fall of her hair.
Sebastian blinked and released her. It seemed to her he did it reluctantly, but she knew she must be wrong. She was not much more than a child to him—he had said as much—though she didn’t feel anything like a child just at the moment. ‘I’ll walk you back,’ he said.
‘No, thank you, I shall be...’
‘I wasn’t asking for permission.’
She had nothing to say to that and so, terrified of appearing gauche or worse still, betraying her shocking thoughts, instead simply shrugged in a very good impression of indifference, and began to clamber over the paddock fence, quite forgetting that she could easily have opened the gate.
They walked through the woods in silence. There was between them an awkwardness, an awareness which she could not describe. She did not want their walk to end, but it did, and too soon. ‘This is where I leave you,’ she said, pausing to the wall at the edge of the woods, waiting—for what?
Nothing, it seemed. Sebastian held out his hand. ‘Goodbye, Caro.’
She took it briefly. ‘Goodbye, Sebastian.’ Without another word, she climbed over the wall and took off through the woods, refusing to allow herself to look back.
Chapter Two
Crag Hall—August 1830
Caro slowly came round to consciousness. She felt as if she had swum to the surface of a deep, dark pool, exhausting herself in the process. Her head was thumping. Her eyelids were gritty and sore, as if she had been rubbing sand in them. What was wrong with her? Pushing herself upright, she opened her eyes, wincing as the room spun sickeningly. The ceiling was ornate, with rococo gilding on the cornicing. The bed hangings were green damask, as were the curtains. Tulip wood, she thought distractedly, running her trembling hands over the bedstead with its gilt carving. A dressing table set by the window was draped in white lace. The walls were painted a pale green and hung with a number of portraits. A white marble mantel upon which a large French clock sat, was carved with cupids.
It was, or had been, an elegant room. As her senses slowly unscrambled Caro began to notice the shabbiness, the fine layer of dust which covered the furniture, the faded fabric, the musty air of neglect. Where was she?
Breathing deeply to quell her rising panic, she threw back the sheets and stumbled over to the window, pushing open the casement. Fresh country air flooded in. She was clearly not in London, then. Outside, it was dusk. There was a paddock. Gardens. Woods. And in the distance, the chimney pots of another house. A very familiar house. Oh, dear heavens, an extremely familiar house. Killellan Manor. Which meant that this house was...
She looked around her in consternation. She pinched her hand, something she’d always thought people did only in novels. It hurt, but she didn’t wake up because she wasn’t asleep. She really was here, in Crag Hall. Appalled, she tottered back to sit on the edge of the bed. How did she get here? Frowning hard, her head aching with the effort to concentrate, she tried to recall. Her memory came back in flashes. Her father shouting, then coldly formal. Her storm of tears followed by an urgent need to forget, to obliterate it all, just for a moment.
Who had told her of the room in Augustus St John Marne’s house? It didn’t matter. She remembered it now, the sweet smell, the bitter taste, and then the dreams. A great bear with yellow teeth and malevolent eyes. A fish with bleeding scales. An endless corridor with door upon door which led to a sheer drop. She had fallen and fallen and fallen and not once landed. Dreams. Nightmares. Visions. But how had she come to be here?
A tap on the door made her clutch foolishly at the bedcover, pulling it up over her nightgown. Her nightgown. Had someone then packed her clothes? And who had dressed her? She watched the door open with a heart which beat far too fast and a growing sense of dread.
‘You’re awake.’
Her heart plummeted. Sebastian hovered on the threshold. Caro froze, terrified to move lest her emotions boil over. She mustn’t cry, she must not cry. His frown was deeper than she remembered, and the shadows under his eyes were darker. He looked older. Sadder? No, but not happy either. Which was no concern of hers. She must remember the last time they had spoken, how disillusioned she had been, how hurtful he had been.
‘You said you never wanted to see me again,’ she said, opting for attack to cover her mortification and confusion, ‘so what am I doing here?’
He flinched, and she could not blame him for her voice sounded much more aggressive than she had intended, but she had to keep hold, she had to keep sufficient control of herself to get out of here. ‘The last thing I remember is Augustus St John Marne’s party.’
Sebastian closed the door and leaned against it. He was wearing riding breeches and top boots, a shirt, open at the neck. He was tanned. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her. She had forgotten that way he had, of making her feel as if he could read her mind.
‘If I hadn’t stumbled across you there and rescued you, it would most likely have been the last thing you ever remembered. Or perhaps that was your intention,’ he said.
‘Of course not!’
‘You came pretty close, Caro.’
‘Nonsense.’ She swallowed uncertainly. Her throat was sore. An image of herself, retching into a bowl, popped into her head, making her face flame. ‘I am sure you exaggerate.’
Sebastian shook his head decisively. ‘If the doctor hadn’t given you a purge, I doubt you’d still be with us.’
Which answered that question, Caro thought, now thoroughly mortified. ‘How long have I been here? And more to the point, why am I here? I’d have thought I’d be the last person you’d want to keep company with, after our last meeting. In fact, even more to the point, where are my clothes? I suppose I should thank you for rescuing me, not that I believe I needed rescuing, but I am perfectly fine now, and will relieve you of my presence just as soon as I am dressed.’
She jumped to her feet, staggering as a wave of dizziness swept over her. Sebastian strode across the room, catching her before she fell. ‘Dammit, Caro, you have been at death’s door.’
How could she have forgotten how solid he was? And how quickly he could move. He smelled of fresh linen and soap and outdoors, hay and horse and freshly turned soil. She had an overwhelming urge to cry, and fought it by struggling to free herself. Not that she had to fight very hard. He let her go immediately. As if he could not bear to touch her. Caro sniffed. ‘Was I really so close to...’
Sebastian nodded.
She sniffed harder. ‘I truly did not mean to—you must not think it was deliberate. It was just—I was just...’ Her voice trembled. She took a shaky breath. ‘I merely wished to blot everything out. Just for a while. I don’t suppose you understand that, but...’
‘Oblivion. I understand that need very well. As I think you remember,’ Sebastian said curtly.
Oblivion. It was Caro’s turn to flinch. ‘I should go.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Sebastian, I know you don’t want me here.’ She tried to push past him, though where she thought she was going dressed only in her nightgown, she had no idea. He caught her, pulling her firmly up against him. Heat of a very different sort flooded her, taking her aback, as her breasts were crushed against his chest.
For the briefest of seconds, she saw the same heat reflected in his eyes, then he blinked, his face set and he released her, taking up a post at the window, as far away from her as the room would allow, she noted without surprise. ‘May I ask where you plan to go?’ he asked.
Caro shrugged. ‘Back to my lodgings, where else?’
‘I took you there from St John Marne’s. I couldn’t believe it when I discovered you don’t even have a maid. I paid that vulture of a landlady to watch over you once the doctor had given you a purge, and when I came back the next morning she was nowhere to be seen. Your trunk was packed. She left me a note requesting me to leave the key in the lock.’
It hurt, more than it should, for she should be accustomed to being an outcast by now. ‘One more place where I am persona non grata,’ Caro said with a fair attempt at nonchalance. ‘There are plenty other landladies. I must assume, from your decision not to return me to the bosom of my loving family, that you are aware that I have been cast out?’
‘I heard that you and Rider had separated.’
She felt her cheeks flame. ‘It is not like you to be so polite, Sebastian. I can tell from the way you hesitated that you have heard significantly more than that. You have not asked me how much of it is true.’
‘What difference would it make? Besides, whatever you may think of me, I am no hypocrite. My reputation is hardly snowy white.’
She smiled faintly. ‘No, but it is different for a man.’ This was such an incontrovertible fact that he made no attempt to answer, for which she was strangely relieved. Whatever he had heard, he had not judged her. It was the smallest of consolations, but it was a balm nonetheless. ‘My father came to see me earlier on the day you found me at St John’s. He was just back from the Balkans. He was so angry that I, the one dutiful daughter he thought he had, should be the cause of such a dreadful scandal. It is ironic,’ Caro said with a twisted smile, ‘that of the five of us, I am the only one to have gone through with a match of his making, if one does not count Celia’s first marriage, and it is that very match which is now the subject of every scandal sheet in London. He told me—he said to me—he said he was ashamed of me.’
She dug her nails into her palms. To cease feeling sorry for herself was one of her new resolutions. ‘He told me that I had brought disgrace to the family name. That I was not fit company for my brothers, and that—that I am no longer his daughter. I know it was weak of me, but at the time—for that to happen on top of everything else, it was the final straw. You must believe me when I tell you that I had no intention of doing myself any fatal harm, but I confess that for a few hours, I really didn’t care whether I lived or died. I am grateful to you for coming to my aid,’ she finished, blinking furiously, ‘truly I am, but I am perfectly capable of looking after myself.’ She ran her fingers through her tangle of lank hair. ‘I must look a fright.’
‘Yes, you do,’ Sebastian said, forcing her to laugh, for he never had been one for empty compliments. ‘What will you do, Caro?’
She got to her feet and joined him at the window, looking out at the paddock. ‘I don’t know, but I obviously can’t stay here.’
‘London is hellish uncomfortable in the summer months. Sitting alone in a dingy set of rooms with nothing but your thoughts for company isn’t going to solve anything. You’re not nearly as strong as you think, in body or mind. You need respite, a place to recuperate, a change of scenery.’
‘Then I shall go to Brighton, or Leamington Spa, or Bath. I don’t care where I go, and it’s none of your business.’
‘Why do so, when you can stay here?’ Sebastian dug his hands deep into the pockets of his riding breeches. ‘Tell me honestly, Caro, was it that night which caused the rift between you and Rider?’
That night. She had grown up in more ways than one that night. ‘That night was two years ago, Sebastian,’ she said coldly. ‘What came between myself and my husband was entirely my own fault. If you are offering me sanctuary to assuage your conscience, let me tell you there is no need.’
‘I’m offering you sanctuary because you need it! Why must you be so pig-headed!’
‘I am not being pig-headed, I am being considerate,’ Caro snapped, roused by his anger. ‘Very well it would look, for the Marquis of Ardhallow to give house to a fallen woman whose own family are his neighbours. I can see the chimney pots of Killellan Manor from this window, for goodness’ sake. The county would be in an uproar.’
To her surprise, he grinned. ‘You know my reputation. One more fallen woman is neither here nor there.’
She smiled reluctantly, trying not to remember how that upside-down smile of his had always heated her. ‘I could not even consider it. Papa would be mortified.’
‘Isn’t that all the more reason for you to stay? He has treated you appallingly, I can’t believe you’re going to lie down and take it.’
She opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again, much struck by this.
‘You don’t owe him anything, Caro,’ Sebastian urged, as if he could read her thoughts. Which he used to do, remarkably well.
‘Papa told me I had fallen as low as it was possible to fall,’ she said bitterly.
‘Then show him that he’s wrong.’
She was absurdly tempted, but still she shook her head. ‘It is very kind of you, but...’
‘Kind! I am never kind,’ Sebastian broke in harshly. ‘I thought you knew me better.’
She looked at him wonderingly, playing for time as she tried to make sense of his motives. Though they had known each other for more than ten years, the time they had spent together had been fleeting. Though they had shared the most intimate of experiences, that night if nothing else should have proven to her that she had been wholly mistaken in him. ‘I barely know you, Sebastian, any more than you know me. We may as well be strangers.’
He looked hurt, but covered it quickly. ‘Not complete strangers. We are two renegades in the wilderness with nothing to lose, we have that much in common.’
‘I am not—you know, I think you may be right. I have lived my entire life bending to other people’s will, perhaps now it’s time to live my own life. Whatever that may be.’
‘Then you’ll stay?’
Her smile faded. ‘Why, Sebastian? Truthfully?’
‘Truthfully?’ He stared out of the window. ‘I don’t know. I swore I’d have nothing to do with you again, but when I saw you at St John Marne’s—no, don’t bridle, you were pathetic then, but you are not pitiful. I suppose, despite all, I don’t think you deserve the bad press you have received...’
‘And that feeling resonates with you?’
She knew she should not have said it, that it was deliberately provocative, but he had always had that effect on her, and to her surprise he smiled ruefully. ‘Perhaps.’
It was this rare admission that decided her. ‘Then if you mean it, I will stay. For a little while. Until I have recovered my strength and am in a better position to decide what to do.’
‘Good.’ Sebastian nodded. ‘I—good.’
The bedchamber door closed softly behind him. What on earth had she done? Caro looked out the window at the rooftop of her family home, and discovered that her strongest emotion was relief. A lifetime’s obedience to the call of duty had backfired spectacularly. She was done with it! The shock of coming so close to death made her realise how much she valued her life. Whatever she would become now, it would be of her own making.
London, Spring 1824
The room in which the séance was to be held was dimly lit. Sebastian’s knowledge of séances and mediums was confined to one slim volume. Communication with the Other Side it had been titled, written by Baron Lyttleton. He had come across it in the vast library of Crag Hall on his latest—brief as ever—visit. The tome described the author’s conversations with the departed. Arrant nonsense, Sebastian had thought derisively. He had not changed his view.
Kitty, however, seemed genuinely to believe in the whole charade. His current mistress had, to his astonishment, become sobbingly sentimental upon the subject of her dead mother from whom she had parted on poor terms when she had first embarked upon her fledgling career as a courtesan. Kitty had resorted to tears in her efforts to persuade Sebastian to escort her here tonight. ‘If I could just talk to Mama once, Seb, I know I could explain, make her proud of me,’ she had said.
The fact that she was naked at the time save for her trademark diamond collar, having just performed expert, if somewhat clinical fellatio upon him, made Sebastian somewhat sceptical of the point Kitty was making. He had gritted his teeth at her use of the diminutive of his name, something he had always loathed, but there was little merit in constantly correcting her. He was already bored with Kitty, and under no illusion about her feelings for him either. His rakehell reputation made him a desirable catch for her, but there were so many other fish swimming in her pond that it was only a matter of time before her avarice overcame her promise of exclusivity, and exclusivity was one of the very few principles to which Sebastian held true.
He had already purchased the diamond bracelet which would be her farewell gift after tonight’s entertainment. Though he had no doubt it would prove to be a clever hoax, the séance had at least the merit of being a novel experience. God knows, after more than four years in the ton, there were few enough of those left to him.
They were a strange collection, the other guests in the room, some surprisingly well-heeled. He recognised at least two grand-dames, bedecked in black silk and lace, who turned quickly away from him, though whether it was because they were ashamed to be caught dabbling in the black arts, or ashamed to be seen in the company of the notorious Earl of Mosteyn, Sebastian could not say. More likely the latter, though.
‘Do stop staring, Seb, it is not at all the thing.’ Kitty, resplendent in red silk, her justly famous bosom demurely covered by a spangled scarf, tugged reprovingly at his arm. ‘And take that cynical look off your face. These people are seeking solace from their loved ones, just as I am. Do not mock them, or me, for that matter.’
Sebastian eyed his about-to-be-ex-mistress with some surprise. ‘You really do believe in this balderdash, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do. And so too do the rest of the audience, so you will please me this one last time, and refrain from disrupting the proceedings.’ Kitty adjusted her bracelet over her evening glove, then drew him a very candid look. ‘Oh yes, I know your mind better than you think. I am perfectly well aware that you are about to give me my congé, so I will accept your promise to behave as the gentleman you were raised to be in lieu of any more prosaic payment.’
‘Alas, I had already purchased diamonds for you. But if you are sure...’
‘Then of course, it would be very rude of me to decline them,’ Kitty said with one of her sweetest smiles.
‘You may have my promise and the jewellery both,’ Sebastian said, making the smallest of bows, ‘and please accept my compliments too. Our time together has been most pleasurable.’
‘Naturally it has. My reputation is not undeserved.’ Once more Kitty adjusted her bracelet, a smile playing on her lips. ‘Nor indeed is yours, my lord. The pleasure has been quite mutual.’
He would have been flattered had he cared, but he did not. They were both adept at giving pleasure. They had both had many years’ practice. They were skilled enough to have turned love-making into an art and indifferent enough to ensure that it remained exactly that—a pleasant pastime which was neither necessary nor encroaching, an indulgence of the senses which was no drain on the emotions.
Which, thought Sebastian, as he watched the other attendees begin to seat themselves around the large table placed in the centre of the room, explained why he was so bored. He needed change. And he needed distance. That last interview with his father preyed on his mind. Having the marquis threaten to disown him unless he mended his profligate ways should have felt like a victory, but the truth was, Sebastian’s taste for scandal and his reputation for refusing no wager, no matter how dangerous, had become as tedious to him as they were repugnant to his father. Perhaps he should consider the Continent.
There were still two empty spaces at the table. As the maidservant circled the room dimming the lamps, one of the chairs was taken by a lady. Tall and slim, he could not at first see her face, which was obscured by her neighbour, but there was something, a prickling awareness, which drew his attention. Unlike the other women, she did not wear an evening gown, but a plain muslin dress with long sleeves, cut high at the neck. Her hair was piled in a careless knot on top of her head. Even in the dim light, he could see it gleaming. His memory stirred.
The arrival of the medium, an impressively large woman bedecked in lilac, intruded on his view. Mrs Foster, spirit guide and conduit to the hereafter, to give her her full billing, took the remaining empty chair. The lights were extinguished and the séance began.
* * *
Grateful for the anonymity afforded by the dark, Caro concentrated on trying to get her breath back. Bella, with Cressie in tow and no doubt the cause of their tardy departure, had only just left Cavendish Square for the Frobishers’ ball, resulting in Caro having to run all the way here, unwilling to risk waiting for a passing hackney cab, lest she miss the beginning of the séance. She had come on impulse, pretending a headache after a piece on Mrs Foster in the Morning Post had piqued her interest. Her sensible self told her that it was silly to expect to make contact with her mother, who had been dead nearly fifteen years, during which time her ghost had stubbornly refused to appear. Her sensible self told her that even if Mama did want to communicate in some way, it was highly unlikely that she would do so through Mrs Foster, with whom Lady Catherine Armstrong had never, to the best of Caro’s knowledge, been acquainted. So spoke Caro’s sensible self, but her secret self was slightly desperate and could not help but hope.
‘Let us all join hands.’
Mrs Foster had surprisingly large, meaty hands, more suited to a butcher than a medium. Her fingers, which rested on Caro’s, were warm in contrast to those of the man seated on her other side, which had the quality of parchment and made her shiver. Like someone walking over your grave, melodramatic Cassie would say. Could this woman really conjure voices from beyond the grave? As the room grew suddenly cold, Caro began to think it possible.
‘Concentrate,’ Mrs Foster intoned in a deep, sonorous voice, ‘concentrate on summoning the spirits of the dear departed.’
The silence intensified, becoming thick as treacle. A smell, a terrible noxious stench, horribly like something emerging from a crypt, drifted into the room, carried on wisps of strange white smoke. One of the women seated round the table began to whimper. Caro’s hand was clutched painfully tight by the man at her side. On her other side, Mrs Foster’s hand had become icy and cold, like marble.
Caro tried not to panic. Part of her was sure it was a charade, but another part of her was afraid that it was not. She had assumed that speaking to Mama would be reassuring, that knowing Mama was there for her would make it easier to bear the absences of those who were not—Papa, Cassie, Celia—and accept the presence of the one person she wished really would go away, Bella. But whatever presence was in this room, it was not benevolent.
The smoke drifted towards the ceiling, and the smell changed, from acrid and dank to something sweeter. Lilies perhaps? The clutching man next to her gasped, making Caro jump. Of its own accord, the table rattled, and the muslin curtains at the long windows blew gently as a light breeze wafted through the salon. One of the female guests squealed. Caro, her leg pressed too close to Mrs Foster’s voluminous skirts, had felt the woman’s knee jerk upwards, but was it before or after the table moved? She could not be sure.
The medium began to speak, her voice tremulous. ‘I have someone standing behind me. Catherine.’
Catherine was Mama’s name. A cold sweat prickled Caro’s spine.
‘Catherine.’ The medium’s voice grew higher in pitch, like the whine of a recalcitrant child. ‘Is Catherine there? She wishes to speak to Catherine.’
To Catherine. The disappointment was so acute that it made Caro feel sick and slightly silly. It hadn’t occurred to her that Mama may have to wait her turn, if she appeared at all. She almost jumped out of her skin when the woman on the other side of the table spoke up, claiming this ghost as hers.
‘Mama?’ the woman said uncertainly. ‘Mama, is that you? It is I, Catherine. Kitty.’
‘Kitty.’
The voice, the same strangled, whining voice which had emanated from Mrs Foster, now seemed to be projected from the other side of the room. A trick? Surely it must be a trick. Had the medium’s lips moved? Caro couldn’t see.
‘Catherine. Kitty. It is your mama.’
A muffled shriek greeted this statement. ‘I am so sorry for our quarrel, Mama. Can you forgive me? I know you disapprove of my—my career, but it has brought me prosperity and security. Please try to be proud of me.’
‘Of course I am, my darling daughter. I am at peace now, Kitty. At peace.’
The voice trailed away. Still, Caro could not tell if it came from Mrs Foster or some other presence. The table rattled again. The smell of lilies grew sickly sweet, and the medium spoke once more, this time in a deep growl. ‘George?’
There was no answer. The attendees waited, it seemed to Caro, with bated breath, until the name was uttered again. More silence.
‘Edward?’ Mrs Foster ventured, in that now familiar high-pitched voice.
The clutching man at Caro’s side let go of her hand. ‘Nancy? Could it be my Nancy?’
‘Edward, it is your Nancy. It is I, my dear.’
She wanted to believe it, but it struck Caro that Mrs Foster’s messages from beyond the grave seemed to rely on information provided by the audience rather than the spirit world. It had to be a trick. Of course, she’d known it would most likely be so, but all the same...
Her fear turned to anger. It was not fair, to give out the promise of false hope. What an utter fool she had been to think it could be otherwise. Even if Mrs Foster hadn’t been a charlatan—yes, there went the table again, and this time Caro was sure that the medium’s knee jerked before and not after—even if she had been bona fide, even if Mama had made contact, what comfort could she have given her daughter? Bella still hated her. Papa still acted as if he cared nothing for her—or any of his daughters. And Caro was still faced with the prospect of either making a good match to please him or spending the rest of her life looking after Bella’s many progeny. Her stepmother had already given birth to two boys, and she was increasing again. Killellan stripped of all of her sisters would be unbearable. Cressie, in her second Season, was bound to make a match in the near future, and Cordelia made no secret of her desire to wed as soon as possible in order to escape home, where Bella and her infant sons ruled the roost. Caro sighed. Why was it that doing one’s duty seemed sometimes so unrewarding?
Having assured George that his Nancy, like Kitty’s mama, was very happy and at peace, Mrs Foster slumped back in her chair with a deep, animalistic groan which distracted Caro from her melancholy thoughts. Her hand was released. As if by magic, though obviously with the impeccable timing of practice, the maid appeared to turn up the lamps. Caro rubbed her eyes. Across the table from her, a woman was sobbing delicately into her kerchief. The aforementioned Kitty, she presumed, and obviously wholly convinced that she had just communed with her mother. Lucky Kitty, to be so easily placated.
Caro stared at her, fascinated. The woman was voluptuously beautiful. Tears sparkled on her absurdly long dark lashes, but signally failed to either redden the woman’s nose or make tracks down her creamy skin. When Caro cried, which she hated to do, her nose positively bloomed and her skin turned a blotchy red.
A prickling feeling, a sense of somebody watching her, made her drag her eyes away from the beauty to the man at her side. Her heart did sickening somersaults as she looked quickly away. It could not be he, it simply could not be. She sneaked another glance. It was him! What on earth was Sebastian doing here? Surely not, like her, in the hopes of communing with his dead mother!
It was almost four years since they had met, four years since she had tumbled headlong into that girlish crush which she ought to have recovered from long since. Which of course she had recovered from! It was a shock, that was all, seeing him here, looking even more raffishly handsome than she remembered. He had garnered a frankly wicked reputation in that time, while she had turned him, in her imagination, into her dashing knight in shining armour, riding to her rescue in her dreams, taking her away from the tedium and loneliness of her life at Killellan.
Kitty appeared to be his companion. There was something proprietary about the way the woman put her hand on Sebastian’s arm. And something not quite proper in the way she was dressed. Too much bosom on display, even if it was quite magnificent. Caro’s eyes widened. She must be his mistress. Yes, definitely his mistress, and a—what was the saying?—yes, a pearl of the first water, more than worthy of Sebastian’s reputation. Of a certainty, someone of his poise and experience would not look twice at a gauche stork-like female with carrot hair and no bosom to speak of. Except that he was staring, frowning at her, oblivious to his mistress’s tears.
He looked shocked. It hadn’t occurred to her until now, so taken up with her foolish hopes had she been, but she supposed her presence here was a bit shocking. And now she was blushing. Caro pushed her chair back, intent on leaving before he could approach her, because though the thing she wanted most in the world was to talk to him, the thing she wanted least in the world was to be chastised by him, especially in the presence of his beautiful companion. Stumbling from the table, she was halfway across the room when Sebastian caught up with her.
‘What the devil are you doing here?’
Caro turned. He was not quite so tall as she remembered, though that was probably because she had acquired so many extra inches as to make her a positive maypole, according to Bella. And he did seem bigger—broader, more solid, more intimidating, if she was of a mind to be intimidated, which she was not! ‘Good evening, my lord. I seem to recall you asking me a similar question when we last met in your grounds. I see your manners have not improved much in the interim.’ Her voice sounded quite cool, she was pleased to note. ‘As to what I am doing here, I could easily ask you the same question. I had not thought you the kind to be interested in the afterlife.’
‘One life is quite enough,’ Sebastian replied feelingly.
Damned right, was her instinctive reply. She swallowed the words with a small, prim smile. ‘If there is such a thing as an afterlife, I doubt very much that Mrs Foster has access to it.’
‘I am relieved to hear that you were not taken in by the charade. What the devil brought you here, and alone too?’
His eyes were shadowed, with lines flanking the corners of them which had not been there before. Two more lines drew his brow into a permanent furrow. His mouth still turned down in that fascinating way. He had not the look of a happy soul. ‘If you must know, I came here for the same reasons as everyone else—yourself excepted. I had the stupidest notion that I might contact my mother. I thought—oh, it doesn’t matter what I thought, Sebastian, it is none of your business.’
‘Does your father know about this escapade?’
‘Certainly not. He has no interest in speaking to Mama. Oh, you mean he would disapprove of my being here. You may rest assured that he is quite oblivious, as is he seems to be of everything I do, provided it does not damage the prospects he has lined up for me.’
‘His game of matrimonial chess has begun then,’ Sebastian said.
‘You remember that!’
Sebastian grinned. ‘You almost gave me an apoplexy when you leapt on to Burkan.’
Goodness, but she had forgotten the effect his smile had on her. Caro tried and failed to suppress her own. ‘I don’t know why I did it, except that you were so very certain I should not.’
‘And is that why you are here tonight, because you know you ought not to be?’
‘What a very false impression you have of me. I will have you know, that of the five sisters, I am known as the dutiful one.’
At this, he gave a bark of laughter. The deep, masculine sound of it brought the attention of everyone in the room, including the beauty he had escorted who, having recovered her black-velvet evening cloak, was sashaying towards them, all creamy skin, black-as-night hair and voluptuous figure. Caro felt her own shortcomings acutely.
‘My lord,’ the beauty said, ‘I am much fatigued by this experience, and would return home.’
Sebastian was looking suddenly extremely uncomfortable. Obviously, introducing his mistress to his neighbour’s newly-out daughter was not a task he relished. His discomfort stirred the devil in her. ‘My lord,’ Caro said, ‘will you not introduce me to your companion?’
Now he looked appalled. Emboldened, she held out her hand. ‘How do you do? I am Lady Caroline Armstrong.’
Kitty, herself looking slightly taken aback, dropped a curtsy. ‘Miss Garrison. I am honoured, my lady. Mrs Foster has a remarkable gift, has she not?’
‘I’m afraid Lady Caroline is rather more of a sceptic than you, Kitty,’ Sebastian drawled.
‘Lady Caroline prefers to keep an open mind,’ Caro said pointedly. Did he not realise that his mistress was most likely content to be duped? ‘Really, Sebastian, you are every bit as rude as I recall.’
And a good deal more attractive to boot. Heavens, but she must not let him see the effect he had on her, it would be mortifying. ‘It was a pleasure to meet you again,’ Caro said, ‘but I must go.’
Sebastian took her hand and surprised her by bowing over it, brushing his lips over the tips of her fingers. His mouth was warm on her skin. His kiss was no more intimate than many she had received since coming out, but it felt very different. She wondered what it would like to kiss him properly, and suddenly remembered wondering the exact same thing that first time they had met. It was a struggle to retain her composure, but she managed. Just.
‘Sebastian, I think we had best be on our way,’ Kitty said with a pointed look at her lover. ‘All this excitement has quite overset me.’
Caro snatched back her hand. Sebastian clasped his behind his back and rocked on to the heels of his polished Hessians. No evening wear for him, despite his mistress’s attire. Had he come here straight from her bed? The thought made her stomach churn. She conjured up a faint smile. ‘You are quite correct, Miss Garrison. I must bid you both goodnight, it was a pleasure.’
‘You have a carriage waiting, I assume?’ Sebastian asked.
‘No, I shall have Mrs Foster’s servant hail a hackney.’
He looked at her, aghast. ‘You surely would not travel alone at night in a public carriage.’
‘Really, it is no distance, and...’
‘Sebastian is quite right,’ Kitty Garrison interjected. ‘Better that he escort you and I will make my own way. No, pray do not protest, I am far more capable of looking after myself on the streets of London than you are. Nor need you have any qualms that you are interfering with our plans for the evening. We have agreed we no longer suit, is that not so, my lord?’
Sebastian bowed. ‘With regret.’
Kitty Garrison laughed softly. ‘No regrets, my lord, only diamonds. You may have them sent round in the morning.’
She was gone in a flutter of silk and velvet, leaving behind the faintest scent of rosewater. ‘I must apologise,’ Sebastian said curtly. ‘If it was known that you had been exchanging pleasantries with Kitty Garrison...’
‘Why should that worry you?’
‘It doesn’t, but it should worry you.’
‘Oh, my reputation is spotless. No one would believe it.’
They were in the small reception hall. Caro pulled on her cloak. It was made of serviceable wool and quite unadorned, worn for its all-enveloping properties, as was the wide, plain hat she had chosen. Sebastian tucked her hand into his arm as they went down the steps of Mrs Foster’s house and began to walk along Great Russell Street. It was not quite dark, but the lamps were already lit on the few carriages which passed. The air had a tang to it which Caro could not get used to, of coal and dust, so different from the sharp, clean smell of the air at Killellan. As always at this time of the evening, with the night stretching ahead, there was a sense of excitement, a tension, of a city waiting for the cover of dark to fall before bursting into life.
‘You know perfectly well that you should not have been at that woman’s house tonight without even your maid to accompany you,’ Sebastian said.
‘What Papa and Bella don’t know cannot harm them,’ Caro responded flippantly. ‘It seems to me that if they knew that you were accompanying me across London in the dark, they’d be a lot more concerned than if they discovered I’d attended a séance and conversed with a courtesan.’
‘Their fears would be quite groundless. I never seduce innocents. Dammit, someone ought to be keeping a closer eye on you.’
‘Oh, but they think they are. However, as I discovered tonight, it is remarkably easy to dupe people into believing one is doing as one ought when they don’t actually care. Papa leaves us girls to Bella, and Bella is so very taken up with her darling boys that she has very little time to supervise us.’
Sebastian threw her a strange look. ‘I would have thought that Lord Armstrong would show a great deal of care about who you do—or do not—spend your time with, since the whole point of the Season...’
‘Is to make a match. Papa has taken a great deal of care. He has drawn up a list, and handed the list to Bella, whose job it is to orchestrate the introductions, while it is my job to make myself charming, as you would have noted for yourself had you frequented any of the numerous parties or balls I have dutifully attended.’
‘I have no wish to become the prey of some matron determined to snare a husband for her daughter. There is no more terrifying creature in all the world than a mama with the scent of marriage in her nostrils.’
Caro laughed. ‘It is true, there are times when I feel as if I am being paraded around like a prime piece of horseflesh. I am twenty years of age, and my entire life is already mapped out for me. A Season to catch a husband who will embellish my father’s position, a few years of docile matrimony to produce the requisite heirs, then I shall no doubt be retired to the country to rear them while my husband enjoys himself in the town as every other husband does.’
‘That is a very jaded point of view.’
‘Oh, I don’t really mean it. I am merely a little—it is nothing. What else is someone like me to do, if not marry?’
‘Attend séances.’
‘Oh, tonight was a—a temporary aberration.’ Caro gave herself a little shake. ‘I am perfectly content to marry one of the men Papa has picked out for me. Though Cassie and Celia have made excellent marriages, they were neither of his choosing. It is only right that one of his daughters does as he bids, for it seems to me that Cressie—never mind, it doesn’t matter.’
‘It obviously does. Tell me.’
She hesitated, but he did seem to be genuinely interested, and the urge to confide in someone was strong now that even the prospect of hearing from Mama had disappeared. ‘I know Cressie is not happy, though when I ask her if anything is wrong, she tells me that there is nothing. But I know there is. She tries so hard to pretend, but I know she hates going to dances and she would much rather be alone with her mathematical books than talking about fashion over the teacups.’
‘Mathematics!’
‘Cressie is the clever one. She is practically a genius,’ Caro said proudly. ‘She has been working on a mathematical theory of cards, something to do with probability and chance. It’s all a bit over my head, but she claims that the system she has developed for faro is foolproof. I would love to be able to surprise her by proving that it is.’
‘And how would you propose to do that?’ Sebastian said warily.
‘You are a great rake, are you not? Well, you must be, because they call you the Heartless Heartbreaker.’
‘A stupid name. I doubt any of the women I have had dealings with have a heart to break.’
‘Rakes are notorious gamesters.’
‘Cards are not one of my vices.’
‘Drink then. Though I confess, I’ve never understood the attraction. What is the point of drinking to excess, if you cannot remember, the next morning, whether you enjoyed yourself or not?’
‘Or whether you had done anything scandalous or not,’ Sebastian added drily.
‘Had you had too much wine then, when you drove hell for leather in the curricle you raced to Brighton, or when you swam the length of the Serpentine in the depth of winter for a wager, or when you climbed to the top of the clock tower of St Paul’s?’
‘Had I been in my cups when I climbed St Paul’s I would most likely be dead. It might surprise you to know, Lady Caroline, that I am not accustomed to drink to excess.’
‘It is Caro. What possessed you to do such dangerous things?’
‘What possessed you to ride a horse you could not control?’
She was forced to smile. ‘Touché. Would it cause a great scandal if you were to take me to a gambling hell?’
He stared at her for a moment, then burst into laughter. ‘Not at all, that would be perfectly acceptable since you and I are acquainted. I recommend we try Crockford’s, known as Fishmonger’s Hall amongst the savvy. The stakes are prodigious there, and their reputation for fleecing every flat who enters the hallowed portals is second to none. Your sister’s mathematical system will get a thorough examination, and if it works you will earn a small fortune in the process. I am jesting, I hasten to add, before you get any silly ideas.’
She had not been entirely serious, but Sebastian’s teasing dismissal raised her hackles just as it had four years ago, when he told her she could not ride his horse. Were it not for the turn the conversation had taken, she would never have dreamed of doing any such a thing as visiting a hell. But she was sure she’d heard Cressie crying in her room last night. How pleased she would be when Caro presented her with the validation of her theory—if she could just persuade Sebastian to accompany her.
They were walking along Margaret Street, a few minutes from Cavendish Square. The nearer they came to her father’s house, the less Caro wanted to arrive because then Sebastian would leave her. She was acutely conscious of her gloved hand on his arm, of her cloak brushing against his leg. It was sheer chance which had brought them together tonight, for they moved in very different circles. Four years since their last meeting, and most likely there would be the same before their next. ‘You may be jesting, but I am in earnest. I would very much like to visit this Crockford’s,’ she said impulsively. ‘It would make Cressie so happy.’
‘You are being ridiculous.’
‘It is surely not entirely without precedent for ladies to frequent such establishments, wearing either masks or veils. I may indeed be fleeced, if Cressie’s theory is wrong, but I am unlikely to be ravished.’
‘Caro, you can’t mean it.’
She didn’t, yet part of her did. There was a strange pleasure to be had in challenging him, just to watch his reaction, but there was too the fact that she would be flaunting the rules just a little. Besides, she would also be helping her sister. ‘I could go disguised as a man, if you thought it would be safer that way,’ she said hopefully.
‘Good grief, no, you would fool no one.’
‘Truly? I am so thin, I would have thought...’
‘Caro.’ They were at the corner of Cavendish Square, yards away from her father’s house. Sebastian pulled her into the shadow of the corner building, away from the lamplight, and pushed her veil up from her face. ‘It is true, you are slim enough to slip through rain, but believe me, there is nothing in the least bit boyish about you.’
He held her lightly, his hands on her arms. Not quite an intimate embrace, not quite wholly respectable either. ‘Why don’t you escort me there, since you are so concerned for my well-being?’
‘Are you out of your mind!’
‘With you as my protector I would surely be safe, and...’
‘Caroline! Enough of this nonsense, you have gone too far.’
She studied him carefully. His mouth was set in a firm line, his expression stern. ‘My apologies. I see now that I would be placing you in a most uncomfortable position, which is unfair of me.’
‘Dammit, it’s not about me. I have no reputation worthy of losing.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It strikes me that you have put an enormous amount of effort into building just such a reputation.’
‘It strikes me that you are doing a very poor job of winning me over.’
‘I can see you are resolved not to assist me, and so I will make my own arrangements.’
His hands tightened on her arms. He pulled her the tiniest bit closer. She could feel his breath on her face. Her heart hammered in her breast. She was hot. Her stomach was churning. She felt as if she were hovering on the edge of a cliff, that giddy temptation to leap into the void almost overwhelming.
‘You would not dare,’ he said.
No, she would not, but nor would she back down now. ‘Did I falter when faced with the challenge of riding your unbroken horse?’ Caro asked.
Sebastian swore under his breath. ‘You would, wouldn’t you? No, don’t answer that.’
‘So take me then, Lord Chivalrous, it is surely your duty to do so. Your father would certainly expect it of you, to protect his neighbour’s daughter.’
Sebastian’s smile turned immediately to a frown. ‘I could easily inform your father of tonight’s events and this discussion, but you will note that I do not threaten any such thing, even though it is what any responsible man would do.’
The sudden change in his demeanour shocked her. She had quite forgotten what he had said of his relationship with his father, having dismissed it as a mere passing quarrel, but things had obviously not improved. ‘I beg your pardon, I meant only to tease.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he replied, though she could see that it patently did. ‘Caroline, you cannot—must not—go to Crockford’s alone.’
She refrained from making any further comment, aware that she had come very close to overstepping the mark. Her heart thudded as she watched him wrestling with his conscience. Her own was beginning to bother her. It was unfair of her. And wrong. But she had come too far to back down now.
She was eventually rewarded with a weary nod. ‘Very well,’ Sebastian said, ‘you leave me with no option, Crockford’s it is. But I earnestly hope we do not live to regret this rash decision.’
Chapter Three
Crag Hall—summer 1830
‘So this is where you’ve been hiding.’
Sebastian looked up wearily from the account book to find Caro standing in the doorway. She wore a simple gown, cream striped with pale green and lemon. The scooped neck showed the soft swell of her breasts, the fragile hollows at the base of her throat. Her hair hung in soft, fiery tendrils over her shoulders. There were still shadows under her eyes, but her skin, no longer ashen, had regained the rich creaminess which had always fascinated him. There remained a fragility about her, she was still far too slim, but she had come a long way since he had brought her here. His mouth went dry as he met her eyes, the blue of a summer sky. Even after all that had passed, even with all that he knew of her, just looking at her was like a kick in the stomach. ‘You look better.’
‘Thanks to several good nights’ rest and a bath. Your housekeeper told me I would find you here. It is very—cosy.’
Convenient was the word he would have used, for the room served as his dining room, study and parlour. Seeing it through Caro’s eyes however, Sebastian realised that it was also cramped and rather shambolic. The large walnut desk stacked with account books, papers and tomes on all aspects of agriculture took up much of the available space. Two wingback chairs faced each other across the hearth. A bookcase occupied another wall, and the small table with two matching chairs took up the only remaining space, leaving little room for manoeuvre. ‘I find it adequate for my simple needs,’ he said defensively. ‘I am close to the stables, I don’t have to employ a small army of servants, and it suits me well enough.’
‘Mrs Keith told me that you kept the staff to a minimum, so I suggested I eat here with you from now on to avoid being an additional burden to the household.’ Caro picked her way across the room to the table and sat down. ‘She looked most disapproving. I suspect she thinks we do more than eat together.’
‘She may disapprove, but she won’t gossip, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
Caro rested her chin on her hand, eyeing him speculatively. ‘Are you having second thoughts, Sebastian? Mrs Keith may not gossip, but you know what it’s like in the shires, my being here will probably already have been discussed over the breakfast cups at every house in the county.’
Sebastian pulled out a seat and joined her at the table. He had been so engrossed in his accounts that he’d failed to notice that it was set for two. Having persuaded her to stay, persuaded himself that his motives were purely chivalrous, her remaining closeted in her room these last two days had allowed him to fool himself into thinking that he had quite forgotten her presence. This unexpected domesticity rather took him unawares. ‘I told you,’ he said, ‘I don’t give a damn what the county say of me.’
‘It’s certainly clear that you have made no effort to endear yourself.’
‘What the devil do you mean by that?’ Sebastian demanded, irked as much by the cool confidence of her tone as by her words.
‘Look at this room, it is as if you are camping out and will pack up and leave at any moment. As to the rest of the house—Sebastian, it cannot have escaped your notice that it is sadly neglected. Mrs Keith tells me all the rooms save yours are shut up. She said that I am the first person to stay here since your father died. She said...’
‘She said a great deal too much. It was my father who let the house go, if you must know. It was like this when I returned from my travels.’
‘Perhaps it was like this because you did not return from your travels earlier.’ Caro dropped her coffee cup with a clatter. ‘I’m sorry. That was unpardonable, I have no right to pass comment on your behaviour.’
‘It was. And you don’t,’ he said tightly.
She buttered a slice of bread, cut it carefully into four triangles and began to nibble on one, saying nothing, but he was aware that she was studying him from under her lashes. Sebastian poured himself another cup of coffee and sipped it broodingly. ‘I don’t see what my neglecting my house has to do with what the damned county think of me,’ he said.
‘No?’
She shrugged, and started on a second triangle of bread. She had very white teeth. She had a very sharp mind. He had no need to justify himself to her. ‘Besides, I have no time for the upkeep of this great barn of a place. Keeping the land in good heart takes all of my time and energy. Not that I get any thanks for that either.’
‘I expect it’s difficult for you to understand the way of things here. You told me the first day we met,’ she added, in response to his questioning look, ‘that you spent as little time as possible at Crag Hall. It is hardly to be expected that you would know how to manage such a large estate.’
Much as he would have liked to, Sebastian could not argue with this fact. ‘An inevitable state of affairs, since my father had no more desire for my company than I had for his,’ he said brusquely.
‘Well, that is one thing we now have in common then,’ Caro said after a short, uncomfortable silence. ‘I used to think that my father was simply not the affectionate type. I was sure he loved me, even though he never gave any sign that he did. Then Bella had James, and Papa haunted the nursery, and it was the same with Henry and George and Freddie. He was never like that with us girls.’
‘Caro, I’m sure...’
‘No. No, there is no point in pretending. If he loved me he would not cast me off. He did not even ask if any of it was true. He took my husband at his word. They went to the same school, you know, though Papa is a good twenty years older.’
He was tempted to ask her for her side of the story, but refrained, telling himself that he did not care, that it was nothing to do with him, that her being here was merely transitory. Her attempt to smile was admirable. Though every word she said was true, he could not doubt the pain which lay behind her acceptance of such unpleasant facts, for he knew how much it had meant to her, to try to please the man. ‘You seem very philosophical about it all,’ he said.
‘That is what happens when you come close to death. It rather gives you a perspective on your life,’ Caro replied drily. ‘Sebastian, why do you keep the house shut up like this?’
He threw his unused napkin onto the table. ‘Dammit, can’t you leave it?’
‘If you were to open it up, to invite your neighbours to tea...’
‘Tea! Do you honestly think they’d allow their wives and daughters to take tea with the Heartless Heartbreaker?’
She chuckled. ‘I expect most of their wives and daughters would readily take anything you were prepared to offer them.’
Her eyes were alight with humour. She had a mouth made for smiling, though he was willing to bet she hadn’t done much of that recently. And for kissing. It caught him unawares, the memory of her lips on his, the sweet floral scent of her, the silken softness of her glorious hair. He realised he was staring at her, and poured himself another cup of cold and unwanted coffee. She had changed, he thought. She was right, he didn’t really know her at all.
‘My sisters and I used to call your papa the Marquis of Ardhellow,’ Caro said, interrupting his thoughts. ‘We used to speculate about what the house was like. We were desperate to see inside. It is ironic that it took an overdose of opium for me to be granted my wish. From the little I have seen of the place, Crag Hall would live up to every one of the terrible tales we used to spin. It is quite Gothic in its state of neglect.’
She always did have a way of turning things on their head. That much had not changed. Sebastian pushed his full coffee cup out of reach. ‘The Marquis of Ardhellow. I suppose you think the title fits me even better than it did my father.’
She pursed her lips. ‘What I suppose is that you would like it to be so. You seem almost to relish your poor reputation.’
‘Why not? It was hard-earned.’
Caro looked at him appraisingly. ‘What a strange thing to say. And I suppose my being here can only help your cause. So, you really do intend to walk in your father’s shoes after all?’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
‘Shut up here, never seeing anyone. Just as he did.’
‘I see people every day.’
‘Tenants. Villagers. Stable hands. Your bailiff. Servants. But you don’t have any friends to dinner. You don’t call on your neighbours.’
‘There is the small matter of your presence here. And the fact that my nearest neighbours happen to be your family.’
‘Sebastian, do not be obtuse. How could you have guests call on you here, in this room which is smaller than some of your tenants’ parlours? You don’t even employ a cook. Such a beautiful place this is, and so obviously unloved, it is a shame.’
‘I am not the one who neglected this damned pile.
‘Perhaps your father stopped caring because he knew you did not.’
Sebastian pushed his chair back angrily. ‘If I had known you would be so damned inquisitive about matters which do not concern you I would have...’
‘Left me to die.’
‘No! Caro, I did not mean that.’
‘I wouldn’t blame you if you did. I did not mean to poke my nose into your affairs. It is simply that—oh, you will think I am being melodramatic, but you saved my life. I wanted to help save yours.’
‘Thank you, but I do not require saving.’ She looked as if he had slapped her. He felt as if he had. Dammit, he would not let her get under his skin. ‘You will excuse me now, but I have important matters to attend to,’ Sebastian said. ‘My father may have neglected both me and the house but he never shirked his duty when it came to the estate, and nor shall I. Last year’s harvest was poor, and this year’s looks likely to be no better. Despite my lack of experience, I am very much aware of the impact this will have on the labourers.’ In fact, it was a problem which kept him awake at night, for the resulting unrest threatened to turn very nasty indeed. Sebastian was determined to do all he could to alleviate any suffering, but his lack of experience made it a difficult business, giving him ample cause to regret the ignorance he had so deliberately cultivated. ‘Like it or not, I am the Marquis of Ardhallow now.’ Nodding curtly, he left the room.
* * *
Alone at the table, Caro dropped her head into her hands. All the brightness of the new day seemed to have disappeared. The dark clouds which had enveloped her of late loomed large. She sat up, squaring her shoulders. She had problems enough of her own without trying to solve Sebastian’s. In fact, it was probably a desire to avoid thinking about her own problems which had made her turn on him as she had done.
She got to her feet and began to tidy the breakfast things. It was the least she could do, since Mrs Keith was so short-handed. Two years ago, he had finally destroyed her silly notion that she was in love with him. Two years ago, he had destroyed the last of her illusions about him. She had always laughed at the notion of his being the Heartless Heartbreaker, but perhaps after all that was exactly how it was. Like the Hall, Sebastian’s feelings on the subject were locked away and shuttered. His heart was as cold and empty as the house he inhabited.
Picking up a stack of plates, she made her way carefully across the untidy room. The problem was, if he really had wanted to live up to his name, he would surely have left her to die. What was it he’d called them? Two renegades. She smiled to herself, finding that she liked the idea very much. They had always been thus, back then. Cocking a snook at the world. That night at Crockford’s for example...
London—1824
A week had passed since Sebastian had left Caro outside her father’s house at Cavendish Square following the séance. A week, during which time he’d almost convinced himself that she would see sense and change her mind, until her note had arrived that morning. It had been terse and to the point. Her father was still abroad, her stepmother was temporarily confined to bed, her aunt was unavailable to act as duenna, Cressie had of a sudden come down with a head cold and was also confined to bed, and so Caro was free tonight to accompany Sebastian to Crockford’s. If this in any way inconveniences my lord, then be assured that I am perfectly capable of accompanying myself, it finished.
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Marguerite Kaye
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Amongst the gossip-hungry, no name has become more synonymous with sin than that of Lady Caroline Rider. Cast out by her husband and disowned by her family, rumour has it that the infamous ‘Caro’ is now seeking oblivion in the opium dens of London!There’s only one man who can save her – notorious rake Sebastian Conway, Marquis of Ardhallow.With Caro installed in his country home, warming his bed, their passion may not be enough to protect them once news of their scandalous arrangement breaks out…